Wound by LindaMarie 12/09/03: PG-13 Damon isn't one to stay still; he never has been. He keeps a house in this city because it's a good place to wander, because nothing is ever the same in its insular world. Today he wakes from dream-filled sleep, feeling the itch to get out, to move in the open air. And as he sits up and scrubs at his dry hair, he finds Elena's eyes fixed on him from across the bed, over his brother's back. Her gaze follows him while he gets up and crosses to the bathroom. He splashes his face with water, drinks a few mouthfuls, and decides to speak. "You like to watch, don't you?" He knows she can see his smile in the mirror--grateful that at least that part of his kind's mythology is false. He likes to look at himself, handsome devil that he is. She is self-consciously pulling on her kimono. "Yes." "Tell me more." He says it seductively, but without too much weight. He enjoys hearing her speak in that throaty voice. "I like to watch you move, and sleep, and..." "And you like to watch me touch my brother, yes?" Damon thinks maybe he's gone a step over the line: sometimes he isn't sure how far he can push her--but Elena only blushes, and finally laughs. "And vice-versa." She eyes Stefan, sound asleep on the bed. "I don't think he'll be up for a while." "No; I should think not. I imagine he's rather unused to all that activity." Damon clicks open the door to the shower and flicks on the water. As he climbs in, he considers, then turns to regard her more closely. "And you? How do you feel?" Elena follows him into the bathroom and stares at her own reflection. "I'm fine. I thought...I'd be sore, but I'm not." And that's curious, because she should be. Any human would be. Damon wouldn't be surprised if he or Stefan had shared blood with her, but as it is...Well. It's something to think about, but nothing he need bring up with her. Damon responds simply, "That's good," and moves under the hot spray. "I'm going out for a walk. Would you like to come along?" "Sure! I haven't even really left the house at all yet except--" "--except to get right into a car. I know. Well, then why don't you step in here with me now?" She laughs as she shucks off her robe. "Because if we shower at the same time, it'll be faster, right?" "Exactly." As they wash, he's reminded how he loves to feel her skin under his hands. He doesn't quite understand the appeal, but in some inexplicable way, she's like no one he's ever touched before. "Mmm." Elena smooths her palms over his shoulderblades, then gently bites one ridge of his spine. "How soon do you want to leave?" "Too soon." Damon finds himself reconsidering, now, because he wants to tell her to bite harder. Elena pulls back and he acutely senses the space between them. "Let's go, then. I don't think we're gonna get much cleaner." He shuts off the water as she pushes open the door. ********* "What time is it?" she asks as she pours out a glass of juice. He watches her Adam's apple bob while she drinks, head back. "It's about two o'clock." "I keep waking up confused..." "Remind me to get you a watch." She squirms, suddenly uncomfortable, arms wrapped around her chest. It's perplexing to him; she seemed pleased at his other gifts. "Did I say something wrong?" "No. Maybe. It's just...why are you doing all this for me?" He thinks, weighing what would be the best answer. "From an objective standpoint, I take my debts, such as they are, seriously. If it weren't for your help, I'd be dead. So it's my--duty--to help you now. But much more subjectively, and importantly, I happen to be very fond of you." "Oh." She gives no further answer, but then, he hadn't expected her to. ********* Damon locks the door behind them. An intruder might break something before Stefan noticed they were there. "So where are we going?" Elena asks. "Wherever you want, I suppose." Usually Damon just walks. Sometimes he talks about the fate of the world with Sir Mortimer, the bum who lives down the street. Sometimes the two of them compete to scare tourists. He decides not to mention that to Elena. Not just yet, anyway. "Damon," and she frowns at him. Her hair is falling over her face. "I've never been here before. How should I know where to go?" Damon takes a quick breath, looks up at the sky. "Let's head up toward the water." ********* "That was kind of a long walk," she tells him. They're at the edge of a dock, looking down at the grey water. "I hadn't noticed." But now that he listens, her heart's beating fast, the air panting in and out of her lungs. Damon looks out across the Bay. It's very cloudy; he stares at the sun and it doesn't burn his eyes. "No--I guess I shouldn't expect you to." He doesn't add that she's probably right. She's intelligent enough to draw her own conclusions. "It was probably good, though." She's talking faster, nervously now. "I mean, just because I'm only a week old, that's no excuse to slack on the exercise, right? Although I read somewhere that sex burns off more calories than anything else, and if that's true then I've got nothing to worry about..." He's thinking about how quickly she healed, again. If he could get a taste of her blood, maybe he'd understand... "Damon," Elena says pointedly, "What is it? Does being on the water...bother you? 'Cause we could go. I'm all right now." Maybe too all right, he thinks to himself, but pushes those thoughts away for now. "No. This isn't running water. My kind have no problems with oceans. In fact," and he faces her, "I heard a legend once that saltwater is a sacred place for us. It's ruled by the moon, our guardian, and its taste resembles blood." Damon smiles. On hearing his last word, she tenses, and he can sense her discomfort. She looks away. No; he will not be tasting her any time soon. After a few moments she turns back to him, and her grin tells him she's buried whatever fear she had. "So you could go swimming here?" "Oh, yes." His own smile returns, but he makes it softer this time. "I could swim clear to Hawaii if I wanted." "What about sharks?" "Convenient food supply." That makes her laugh, and he joins in. They continue their walk, beside the ocean, watching boats come in and depart. Elena points out sea birds, and Damon names them. "This is the first time I've seen the Pacific." She gives him a surprised look, and shyly, takes his hand. "I don't think I've said it before--thank you for bringing me here." Damon looks at a cable car veering by on the street to their left. "You hadn't. And you're only too welcome." His gaze moves down to their joined hands, and from there to the blue veins in her wrist. He's hungry again--but to be fair, he's really always hungry, only sometimes it's easier or more difficult to ignore. He thinks, fleetingly, of his brother, wondering how Stefan managed not to lose his mind, living on so little for so long. Then, impulsively, he tugs on Elena's wrist, moving her closer to him, and kisses her. Damon demands her response, sucking her upper lip, parting her mouth with his tongue. And she does respond, quickly: she sucks his tongue, scraping it with her flat upper teeth. He groans, thinking only of her mouth, and her soft sweet skin under her clothes, and the sea-tasting heat flowing just beneath... Finally, he lets her come up for air, smiling his sharp teeth at her. He leans down to her ear, to whisper only, but she mistakes the movement and stiffens, afraid. He squeezes with the hand she holds, and with the other, slowly pets the small of her back. "I won't hurt you. I only wanted to say that I think we should start heading back." Damon lifts his head and meets her flushed face. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a woman in a too-small t-shirt and fannypack, staring at them. He turns and gives her the full force of his glare, dropping all his shields. She runs away. "Fuck," he says as he focuses back on Elena, "I think the tourists come here more to see queers than to look at the fucking Bridge." Elena blinks, sighs. "Can we go home now, Damon?" Her voice is tired. She's embarrassed and confused, and more than a little sad. About what, he isn't quite sure. "Of course." They turn back the way they came. Elena has her hands shoved in her pockets; she watches her feet. Damon knows a lot about certain things--like death, and rebirth, and living outside the lines. He knows about myth and beauty and cars. He knows what he likes, and how to get it when he sees it. But he doesn't know about Elena, and perhaps that's what he finds so alluring in her. On the other hand, it doesn't help him much now, when he has no idea how to sweep his damsel off her feet without damaging her in some way. Her thoughts swim under the surface of her mind like golden fishes, and he dips into the pool with his Power, a fisherman's net. She's thinking about the woman, the way she had looked as she watched Elena and Damon. She's thinking about how she only once hugged Stefan in public, before. But above all she's thinking about how long she can resist not being bitten--and it's not that she thinks they would force her, Damon and Stefen, but that she wants it, hungers for it much like they do for blood. Nothing, nothing else is as good or sweet as that occult penetration. But she's too afraid of changing, yet again, and so she fights the need. He's so thick in her thoughts that he almost doesn't catch it when she speaks aloud. "Is that the real reason you brought me here, then?" "What?" Elena makes a vague gesture in the air. "Because of what you said, about, um--queers. Because of what Gateway told me when we were there, about never being safe from people." She shakes her head, still not looking him in the eye. "You thought I'd fit right in." "I beg your pardon." And he uses his real attention-getting voice, the one that infuriated his father over five centuries ago, and now makes Elena's head snap straight up. "Firstly, you'd surely fit in no more than I do, considering I'm the only habitual sodomite in our little household. Secondly, I've owned this house for over 100 years. And thirdly, I brought you here because it's where I wanted to go next, anyway. If by coincidence you're less likely to get treated like shit here, I don't see why you should be complaining." "I'm sorry," she says immediately, but she doesn't mean it. "It's just that where I come from--" "--your best friend is a lesbian and your ex-boyfriend now spends his nights fantasizing about being ravished by Stefan or myself?" And maybe it's spiteful and cruel to throw these facts--these secrets gleaned from open minds--into her face like this, here and now, but there's a perverse satisfaction in it, and it takes that pitiful expression off her face and replaces it with blank shock. "Wh-what?" "I'm not making it up, if you suppose that. Things are not always what they seem, you know." He smirks at her and starts off up the street, not pausing to wait for her. He can sense her emotions roiling inside her, turbulent, all trying to come to the surface, and then hears running footsteps, and then--a yelp. He stops and turns, and she's fallen, perhaps tripped on the uneven sidewalk. Her hand bleeds. In a moment he is next to her, silent, reaching for the wounded hand, thinking, Just a taste, and I'll know, but even as he finishes the thought, even as he pulls her hand to him, the skin begins to knit itself together. He stops, and watches, and within a minute it has sealed over, the bleeding stopped. He lifts his face to meet Elena's, knowing already she's just as surprised and awed and maybe even frightened as he is, and sure enough her eyes are round as saucers. She smiles weakly. "Which best friend?" ********* Somehow they get back up to the house, walk in to find Stefan stretched out on the leather couch, watching the big TV. It's some kind of show on paranormal phenomena: a woman confined to bed finds herself showered with fruit from her orchard, falling from the ceiling, sent by a ghost who previously was always malicious. It's quickly switched off when Stefan notices their small quiet procession into the room. "What is it?" Elena lowers herself to the other couch, across the room, but Damon remains standing, arms crossed imperiously. "It seems," he answers, "that our little changeling here has healing powers. If all her cells regenerate in the way I just saw, she's possibly immortal. "What?" Stefan's face makes Damon laugh loud and hard. "My thoughts exactly," he tells him in between breaths. "I...got cut." She says it so quietly surely only a vampire could have possibly heard it. "And then it was...gone. And this morning I wasn't sore. I haven't been sore or hurt at all since..." "Since you came back." That's Stefan. He exchanges glances with Damon, who lets him continue, for now. "You healed us...and then you came back." "I thought I just felt so good because of you two," Elena mutters. She blinks and examines her now-fully-healed hand. "I don't know what I am now, but I don't think I can heal other people any more. It felt--different..." "Perhaps you can't," Damon says, clearing his throat, eager to get to the best part. "But I don't believe you need be afraid of sharing blood any more. I don't think your body would allow you to make the change, even if you wanted to." "Oh," she says dully, then the thought sinks in, and she raises her head to meet his eyes. A smile of hunger spreads across her face, slow as honey and rich in promise. Fin.