for ever_neutral
Mar. 19th, 2012 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
black_hatI owe you more :) but this is the one that turned out okay and prompt! :) SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR AWESOME SELF. You're a great friend and great writer and thinker and a passionate, cool person, and so my hat goes off to you. Accept this really feeble offering.
Pairing:Damon/Elena
Summary: They go to a movie. (hopefully better than it sounds haha)
Damon didn’t look up from the piano when Elena entered the room.
He always heard her footsteps, and they were quicker now than they were when he first met her. She used to be slow and sure, now always quick. He matched the keys to her steps, preparing to be sardonic. Turns out, he didn’t have to be.
Elena blurred into the room, gave him a half-hearted ‘hey’, and grabbed a liquor bottle.
“Tough day?” he asked.
She looked at him, unspoken things between them—that he always remembered and he knew she did too—and he winked.
“Nope,” Elena said, ignoring the wink. “Not one bad thing happened today or all week.”
“The way you came in here, I thought you were going to tell me about a zombie invasion.”
“…I’m sorry,” she said, taking a swig. “I’m just hanging out here.”
He shrugged, imagining that she was waiting for Stefan, and that other guy kept coming into the house now. Damon thought he must be losing some imposing power as a vampire if that other guy was trying to be friendly.
“There haven’t been any animal attacks either,” Elena said, and he kept his eyes on the keys, kept his
“That can always change,” he said, and felt inclined to play Tiptoe through the Tulips. She walked over, slowly this time, and sat on the bench with him. He felt inclined to play something more impressive.
“That’s really nice,” she said. So she was talking about the song.
“Thanks, I wrote it. Composed it, you know.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said. She sighed and then deliberately touched the wrong keys. Despite everything, Damon was for perfection in his own way, and therefore he let her play her little off key melody. Her hands were small. He had noticed it before, and Katherine’s hands were the same but they’d crush you. He wondered how Stefan kept his control.
He reached out and touched her hand and she stiffened, watching him. “I was going to show you.”
Elena smiled at him. “You could ask first.”
Damon had to laugh even though that wasn’t funny.
“Maybe you can show me,” she said.
“But not now, huh?” he asked. Whenever he asked, the answer was no.
“Well, that’s the thing. I came over here to ask you something.”
“But I thought nothing bad happened today,” he said mockingly.
Elena gave him a hard look before she shook her head, determined about something. “I wanted to go to a movie today since I have all these free afternoons.”
“You have my permission,” Damon said.
She looked at him again. He stopped, unsure. He had a dread building up inside of him that he could not explain. “Oh,” he said, and tried to sound nonchalant.
“I wanted to see if you’d like to come with me,” she said, offhand. “But if not, I’m just going to go by myself. I guess everyone’s pretty busy so.”
Nice addition. He should say no. Say no. He hesitated.
“Well, I guess-.”
“What movie?” he asked, brow furrowed. She looked completely surprised. Completely.
Almost as if he had done what she hadn’t meant to happen. Now he needed a drink.
“I’m going to be spontaneous and just go. Movies are starting about now.”
“Well, then let’s go,” because he wasn’t going to let her go now, despite that look, now he had to.
“Good, uh, this will be fun.”
He raised his eyebrows but he smiled anyway, smugly, because while this could go wrong for her, it couldn’t go wrong for him.
***
There were horror movies playing at the theatre at Mystic Falls.
There was a thriller—Damon would guess a lot of explicit scenes would be in a thriller—thrilling. There was a romantic comedy about a love triangle. Elena stood there in front of the choices with her arms crossed, biting her lip.
Damon would say ‘hey I’m not in the mood’, but instead, “Decisions, decisions.”
“I know,” Elena said. “There was a lot more variety here than I expected.”
“We’re going to miss the previews,” he said, and she tensed her chin. “Let’s go to the comedy,” he said. “What else says unlimited hilarity than two love sick chasing after a mysterious, indecisive-.”
“I want to see the slasher movie,” she said.
Damon frowned, heavily, but before he could move, Elena was buying the tickets. “Two for Blood Bath Camp.”
All right. If that’s what she wanted to do, he’d let her choose. He had to admit it was a tense moment: standing by her as she ordered popcorn, extra butter.
“Do you want anything? You know, for the full cinematic experience.”
“I came prepared,” Damon said in a low voice. Elena just nodded, her ponytail bouncing, and he said, “You should probably not be surprised when you open the bag.”
Elena kept her poker face, paying bizarrely with credit. When they got into the theatre, she gritted her teeth and ripped open the bag to find—
“I dipped into my emergency stash for this date,” he said, taking out his bottle. He chose his words deliberately.
“For this movie that we are both seeing,” she said. “Because we both wanted to see a movie today.”
“Yes, our date. Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret.”
She was smoldering and grabbed the bottle out of his hand. “I’m going to need this to sit here with you.”
“See, I’m so considerate.”
“Well, I’m still willing to share popcorn.”
“You’re too kind,” he said. She didn’t like that jab…and it wasn’t a jab either. He was determined to sit through this movie but when the previews rolled—one featured a Disney movie, weird placement—he looked over at her but she kept her eyes forward. He was determined until the lights dimmed and then he really did not want to watch this movie with Elena.
She had to know. What was the point of this, what had he done recently? He fixed his eyes and dug into the popcorn she was sharing. The opening kill wasn’t too bad. The girl ran around the house in a panic, half-clothed and sobbing, and naturally locked herself inside the room the guy was in. It was actually…he was not going to lose control. It was pretty artificial, besides the blood being fake: there were details that you’d never really know about unless you made a habit of it.
She was waiting for something, her eyes oddly heavy but prepared.
He sighed.
“A good rule of thumb is to go out the front door, right,” Elena said dryly. He shifted in his seat.
“It’s a good place to start,” he said. “Never go into the bedroom.”
“Yeah, knew that one.”
“Elena,” he said.
“Hmm?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. He let it go: he knew he’d let her do anything. Focusing on the movie, and not her body beside him, was a good idea.
Then something unexpected happened. You knew it was coming. The scary music was going, and he knew, he was prepared. But when the killer jumped out, he flinched.
Elena did not. She paused and then licked her lips, smiling at him. He pretended just to move in his seat.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“I’m perfectly fine, Damon,” Elena said.
It wouldn’t happen again. Except that it did. The third one was even gruesome for him, but he didn’t see the guy coming at all. He moved in his seat and Elena burst out laughing.
“Okay, I didn’t…” She was laughing so hard she was crying. He made a face at her. “I’m glad you enjoyed that so much.”
“I really, really did,” she said and put a hand on his arm. “That will never not be funny.”
“Enjoy it because it won’t happen again,” Damon said, and he was kind of—it was okay to see her laugh.
It didn’t happen as badly again but he didn’t mind playing it up.
To take away from the obvious.
***
“Some of those effects were unnecessary,” Damon commented on the way out. He didn’t know what to do. She was cool, unaffected, and he was pretty sure he was overdoing it. She basically let him hang there until she looked up finally from fiddling from her purse.
“Gratuitous,” Elena said.
“Very. They have to learn some subtlety.”
“I don’t know, it didn’t bother me that much,” she said. He tried to catch her gaze and she finally returned it, smiling slightly. “What can I say?”
“That we haven’t found your tortured genre.”
“What’s yours? Bad horror movies?”
“You didn’t want to see my tortured genre,” he said and shrugged.
“There’s still popcorn left.”
“You didn’t buy a ticket,” Damon said. “You’re a bad influence for me.”
“Then I can’t resist,” she said, and smiling, went towards the other movie door. It was just starting again, lucky him. He wasn’t paying that much attention to the plot. It was the best friend who liked the girl and it was apparent who would be worthy. Elena looked bored stiff.
“This isn’t how you write a romance, you know.”
“And you do?”
“I do,” he said, mysteriously, “and regardless, you’ve read better books.”
“I didn’t really read romance except for school.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“Well—I preferred mystery and action novels,” she said, shrugging. She had this defiant look on her face again, as if it didn’t matter to her.
“…I’m surprised,” and he really was.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, you seem like the feeling type,” he said. “I think you’d appreciate…a good, unflinching depiction of it.”
“None of it felt right, the gestures, the words,” she said.
“What does feel right about it?”
She looked unsure, and he wished he hadn’t asked. “It just doesn’t seem real.”
He felt betrayed in that he did think she’d get this part. “So you like this movie?”
“No,” Elena argued, “I think it’s stupid, that it’s a big deal about nothing important right now in the long run. Just like the horror movie, it just doesn't seem to matter. It didn't scare me and this doesn't even make sense to me."
Oh.
He wanted to be more—he couldn’t. “Well I’m more serious in my hatred for it.”
She stared at him. “Okay.”
He thought he had just finished up on being really bad company on a simple mundane outing. He was the best at it. But he didn’t want her to think about all those thoughts just now, and he’d do whatever he could to stop it.
They watched in silence, going through the motions. He was lost in his thoughts, odd comparisons. He had known that Stefan had gone to movies and had managed. Not that he had planned on managing or being manageable. This wasn’t what he was to her, and he didn’t think—he knew he didn’t want to be it. So whatever she had hoped to force him into…
“You shouldn’t fight while you drive.” And she laughed, and he noticed her bottle was almost empty.
He looked over, brow furrowed in confusion. He looked back on the screen, where there was a huge fight going on between two of the characters.
“That’s a good rule of thumb too.”
He didn’t know what to say. He wanted these pieces of her desperately, would fight for them. Beg for them in fact. But now that he had it, all he saw was her despair. He wanted her to…
He touched her hand, and she looked over, her face unreadable.
“I should say that…” Her hand was small under his. He could say the words that mattered, only it wasn’t to be said. “you definitely shouldn’t have sex while driving.”
Her face scrunched up. “You’d be dead if you weren’t a vampire. I mean, besides being a vampire, I mean—who does that?”
“I couldn’t do it alone, now, could I?”
She shook her head, and he could sense that a pseudo-funny sex scene would be just around the bend.
“Don’t you think this movie, it’s a little…”
“Awkward,” Elena supplied concisely and smiled at him. It was a little sad, somehow. Following her out, he felt deeply frustrated.
“We did see a movie together,” she offered.
“We sat in a theatre together,” Damon corrected, being nitpicky.
“Then I’m glad we sat in a theatre together.”
He was silent, and it was almost normal to drop her off at her house.
“I might take you up on the piano lessons.”
He nodded. “You’d be mine for the day.”
She rolled her eyes and walked in, walked in quickly. He turned, feeling tired, and he knew he’d do anything—but he hoped she wouldn’t do this to him again. The feeling of failing was overpowering. He couldn't bring her normality, accidently or on purpose.
“Damon,” she called, and he turned, wondering what else could go wrong. “Thanks. You know.”
She closed the door, the light dimming through the narrowing space, and from the outside, he watched her shadow go up the stairs for too long.
Pairing:Damon/Elena
Summary: They go to a movie. (hopefully better than it sounds haha)
Damon didn’t look up from the piano when Elena entered the room.
He always heard her footsteps, and they were quicker now than they were when he first met her. She used to be slow and sure, now always quick. He matched the keys to her steps, preparing to be sardonic. Turns out, he didn’t have to be.
Elena blurred into the room, gave him a half-hearted ‘hey’, and grabbed a liquor bottle.
“Tough day?” he asked.
She looked at him, unspoken things between them—that he always remembered and he knew she did too—and he winked.
“Nope,” Elena said, ignoring the wink. “Not one bad thing happened today or all week.”
“The way you came in here, I thought you were going to tell me about a zombie invasion.”
“…I’m sorry,” she said, taking a swig. “I’m just hanging out here.”
He shrugged, imagining that she was waiting for Stefan, and that other guy kept coming into the house now. Damon thought he must be losing some imposing power as a vampire if that other guy was trying to be friendly.
“There haven’t been any animal attacks either,” Elena said, and he kept his eyes on the keys, kept his
“That can always change,” he said, and felt inclined to play Tiptoe through the Tulips. She walked over, slowly this time, and sat on the bench with him. He felt inclined to play something more impressive.
“That’s really nice,” she said. So she was talking about the song.
“Thanks, I wrote it. Composed it, you know.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said. She sighed and then deliberately touched the wrong keys. Despite everything, Damon was for perfection in his own way, and therefore he let her play her little off key melody. Her hands were small. He had noticed it before, and Katherine’s hands were the same but they’d crush you. He wondered how Stefan kept his control.
He reached out and touched her hand and she stiffened, watching him. “I was going to show you.”
Elena smiled at him. “You could ask first.”
Damon had to laugh even though that wasn’t funny.
“Maybe you can show me,” she said.
“But not now, huh?” he asked. Whenever he asked, the answer was no.
“Well, that’s the thing. I came over here to ask you something.”
“But I thought nothing bad happened today,” he said mockingly.
Elena gave him a hard look before she shook her head, determined about something. “I wanted to go to a movie today since I have all these free afternoons.”
“You have my permission,” Damon said.
She looked at him again. He stopped, unsure. He had a dread building up inside of him that he could not explain. “Oh,” he said, and tried to sound nonchalant.
“I wanted to see if you’d like to come with me,” she said, offhand. “But if not, I’m just going to go by myself. I guess everyone’s pretty busy so.”
Nice addition. He should say no. Say no. He hesitated.
“Well, I guess-.”
“What movie?” he asked, brow furrowed. She looked completely surprised. Completely.
Almost as if he had done what she hadn’t meant to happen. Now he needed a drink.
“I’m going to be spontaneous and just go. Movies are starting about now.”
“Well, then let’s go,” because he wasn’t going to let her go now, despite that look, now he had to.
“Good, uh, this will be fun.”
He raised his eyebrows but he smiled anyway, smugly, because while this could go wrong for her, it couldn’t go wrong for him.
***
There were horror movies playing at the theatre at Mystic Falls.
There was a thriller—Damon would guess a lot of explicit scenes would be in a thriller—thrilling. There was a romantic comedy about a love triangle. Elena stood there in front of the choices with her arms crossed, biting her lip.
Damon would say ‘hey I’m not in the mood’, but instead, “Decisions, decisions.”
“I know,” Elena said. “There was a lot more variety here than I expected.”
“We’re going to miss the previews,” he said, and she tensed her chin. “Let’s go to the comedy,” he said. “What else says unlimited hilarity than two love sick chasing after a mysterious, indecisive-.”
“I want to see the slasher movie,” she said.
Damon frowned, heavily, but before he could move, Elena was buying the tickets. “Two for Blood Bath Camp.”
All right. If that’s what she wanted to do, he’d let her choose. He had to admit it was a tense moment: standing by her as she ordered popcorn, extra butter.
“Do you want anything? You know, for the full cinematic experience.”
“I came prepared,” Damon said in a low voice. Elena just nodded, her ponytail bouncing, and he said, “You should probably not be surprised when you open the bag.”
Elena kept her poker face, paying bizarrely with credit. When they got into the theatre, she gritted her teeth and ripped open the bag to find—
“I dipped into my emergency stash for this date,” he said, taking out his bottle. He chose his words deliberately.
“For this movie that we are both seeing,” she said. “Because we both wanted to see a movie today.”
“Yes, our date. Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret.”
She was smoldering and grabbed the bottle out of his hand. “I’m going to need this to sit here with you.”
“See, I’m so considerate.”
“Well, I’m still willing to share popcorn.”
“You’re too kind,” he said. She didn’t like that jab…and it wasn’t a jab either. He was determined to sit through this movie but when the previews rolled—one featured a Disney movie, weird placement—he looked over at her but she kept her eyes forward. He was determined until the lights dimmed and then he really did not want to watch this movie with Elena.
She had to know. What was the point of this, what had he done recently? He fixed his eyes and dug into the popcorn she was sharing. The opening kill wasn’t too bad. The girl ran around the house in a panic, half-clothed and sobbing, and naturally locked herself inside the room the guy was in. It was actually…he was not going to lose control. It was pretty artificial, besides the blood being fake: there were details that you’d never really know about unless you made a habit of it.
She was waiting for something, her eyes oddly heavy but prepared.
He sighed.
“A good rule of thumb is to go out the front door, right,” Elena said dryly. He shifted in his seat.
“It’s a good place to start,” he said. “Never go into the bedroom.”
“Yeah, knew that one.”
“Elena,” he said.
“Hmm?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. He let it go: he knew he’d let her do anything. Focusing on the movie, and not her body beside him, was a good idea.
Then something unexpected happened. You knew it was coming. The scary music was going, and he knew, he was prepared. But when the killer jumped out, he flinched.
Elena did not. She paused and then licked her lips, smiling at him. He pretended just to move in his seat.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“I’m perfectly fine, Damon,” Elena said.
It wouldn’t happen again. Except that it did. The third one was even gruesome for him, but he didn’t see the guy coming at all. He moved in his seat and Elena burst out laughing.
“Okay, I didn’t…” She was laughing so hard she was crying. He made a face at her. “I’m glad you enjoyed that so much.”
“I really, really did,” she said and put a hand on his arm. “That will never not be funny.”
“Enjoy it because it won’t happen again,” Damon said, and he was kind of—it was okay to see her laugh.
It didn’t happen as badly again but he didn’t mind playing it up.
To take away from the obvious.
***
“Some of those effects were unnecessary,” Damon commented on the way out. He didn’t know what to do. She was cool, unaffected, and he was pretty sure he was overdoing it. She basically let him hang there until she looked up finally from fiddling from her purse.
“Gratuitous,” Elena said.
“Very. They have to learn some subtlety.”
“I don’t know, it didn’t bother me that much,” she said. He tried to catch her gaze and she finally returned it, smiling slightly. “What can I say?”
“That we haven’t found your tortured genre.”
“What’s yours? Bad horror movies?”
“You didn’t want to see my tortured genre,” he said and shrugged.
“There’s still popcorn left.”
“You didn’t buy a ticket,” Damon said. “You’re a bad influence for me.”
“Then I can’t resist,” she said, and smiling, went towards the other movie door. It was just starting again, lucky him. He wasn’t paying that much attention to the plot. It was the best friend who liked the girl and it was apparent who would be worthy. Elena looked bored stiff.
“This isn’t how you write a romance, you know.”
“And you do?”
“I do,” he said, mysteriously, “and regardless, you’ve read better books.”
“I didn’t really read romance except for school.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“Well—I preferred mystery and action novels,” she said, shrugging. She had this defiant look on her face again, as if it didn’t matter to her.
“…I’m surprised,” and he really was.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, you seem like the feeling type,” he said. “I think you’d appreciate…a good, unflinching depiction of it.”
“None of it felt right, the gestures, the words,” she said.
“What does feel right about it?”
She looked unsure, and he wished he hadn’t asked. “It just doesn’t seem real.”
He felt betrayed in that he did think she’d get this part. “So you like this movie?”
“No,” Elena argued, “I think it’s stupid, that it’s a big deal about nothing important right now in the long run. Just like the horror movie, it just doesn't seem to matter. It didn't scare me and this doesn't even make sense to me."
Oh.
He wanted to be more—he couldn’t. “Well I’m more serious in my hatred for it.”
She stared at him. “Okay.”
He thought he had just finished up on being really bad company on a simple mundane outing. He was the best at it. But he didn’t want her to think about all those thoughts just now, and he’d do whatever he could to stop it.
They watched in silence, going through the motions. He was lost in his thoughts, odd comparisons. He had known that Stefan had gone to movies and had managed. Not that he had planned on managing or being manageable. This wasn’t what he was to her, and he didn’t think—he knew he didn’t want to be it. So whatever she had hoped to force him into…
“You shouldn’t fight while you drive.” And she laughed, and he noticed her bottle was almost empty.
He looked over, brow furrowed in confusion. He looked back on the screen, where there was a huge fight going on between two of the characters.
“That’s a good rule of thumb too.”
He didn’t know what to say. He wanted these pieces of her desperately, would fight for them. Beg for them in fact. But now that he had it, all he saw was her despair. He wanted her to…
He touched her hand, and she looked over, her face unreadable.
“I should say that…” Her hand was small under his. He could say the words that mattered, only it wasn’t to be said. “you definitely shouldn’t have sex while driving.”
Her face scrunched up. “You’d be dead if you weren’t a vampire. I mean, besides being a vampire, I mean—who does that?”
“I couldn’t do it alone, now, could I?”
She shook her head, and he could sense that a pseudo-funny sex scene would be just around the bend.
“Don’t you think this movie, it’s a little…”
“Awkward,” Elena supplied concisely and smiled at him. It was a little sad, somehow. Following her out, he felt deeply frustrated.
“We did see a movie together,” she offered.
“We sat in a theatre together,” Damon corrected, being nitpicky.
“Then I’m glad we sat in a theatre together.”
He was silent, and it was almost normal to drop her off at her house.
“I might take you up on the piano lessons.”
He nodded. “You’d be mine for the day.”
She rolled her eyes and walked in, walked in quickly. He turned, feeling tired, and he knew he’d do anything—but he hoped she wouldn’t do this to him again. The feeling of failing was overpowering. He couldn't bring her normality, accidently or on purpose.
“Damon,” she called, and he turned, wondering what else could go wrong. “Thanks. You know.”
She closed the door, the light dimming through the narrowing space, and from the outside, he watched her shadow go up the stairs for too long.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-03-20 06:23 am (UTC)Dead.
Damon didn’t look up from the piano when Elena entered the room.
I already love it.
Despite everything, Damon was for perfection in his own way, and therefore he let her play her little off key melody.
THIS IS SO DAMON.
She was smoldering and grabbed the bottle out of his hand. “I’m going to need this to sit here with you.”
I LAUGHED OUT LOUD.
“A good rule of thumb is to go out the front door, right,” Elena said dryly.
lol @ Elena of all people saying this.
But when the killer jumped out, he flinched.
Elena did not.
My life will be forever made at the visual of Damon Salvatore flinching at a horror movie serial killer.
“This isn’t how you write a romance, you know.”
“And you do?”
“I do,” he said, mysteriously
D E A D
“It just doesn’t seem real.”
ARGHHHH PERFECTOMUNDO
He turned, feeling tired, and he knew he’d do anything—but he hoped she wouldn’t do this to him again. The feeling of failing was overpowering. He couldn't bring her normality, accidently or on purpose.
This makes me ache in all the best ways.
… And so endeth the least romantic date known to man. Bless.
So yeah, this was awesome. You write their characters perfectly, jsyk. I love how tired they both are. It's just very right for their dynamic. YET ALSO DELIGHTFUL? Ridiculous humour in total mundaneness.
In conclusion, thank you x10000000 for this, and also the kind words. YOUR EXISTENCE IS A GIFT, FOOL.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 09:38 pm (UTC)“That can always change,”
Hehehehehehehe. This is so melancholy and yet still very sweet and sharp.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-25 12:21 am (UTC)