A/N I'm so very sorry about how long this took! Also, the wonderful Anne (Tw-Erdbeerchen) made a banner for this fic. The link to it can be found on my profile. It's stunning!
Damon woke up to the sound of someone retching their guts out. It wasn't pleasant. Thankfully his stomach didn't seem to be giving him any troubles. It was probably the years and years he had spent building up his tolerance and dealing with hangovers that meant he didn't suffer all that much anymore.
He blinked a couple times trying to get used to the sunlight. He tried to get up but found it was a lot harder than it should have been. It was only then that he realised there was another body on top of him. He looked down to find Elena's sleeping body sprawled out and tangled with his. Her head was snuggled in his chest, using it like a pillow. His left leg was buried in between hers as her right arm wrapped around his waist, keeping him locked in place. How the hell had he not noticed her on top of him as soon as he woke up?
He took a deep breath but soon realised what a mistake that was. The unique smell of citrus fruits and something that was just pure Elena filled his nostrils and did wonders to his insides. He needed to get this girl away from him before he crossed any lines.
He tried to wake her up by calling out her name but that didn't seem to work. So he went to plan B and shook his body from side to side which led to her immediately rolling off him and burying her face in the sand. It was only then that he realised that they hadn't fallen asleep on blankets and so there was sand in places that there definitely should not be sand. He glanced at Elena again and started to worry, could she breathe with her face down in the sand? He decided it would be best to shake her awake. Giving her a couple nudges worked much more effectively than calling out her name as she came back to consciousness within seconds.
She blinked multiple times, much like he had when he woke up before she groaned and pressed her hand against her pounding forehead.
"Oh God, what the hell happened?" her voice scratchy as she asked herself the question, not acknowledging Damon's presence. She started spitting out sand that had somehow gotten into her mouth. "Oh God, that's so disgusting!"
"Are you really having a conversation with God?" he asked, one eyebrow raised. She jumped when he made his presence known.
"Jesus," she said as she pressed her hand against her heart, startled by him.
"Sorry, I'm not Jesus and there is definitely no God around here. Okay I lie; I'm kind of a God."
"Haha, very funny," she said sarcastically, not in the mood to deal with Damon's humour, not when she had a killer headache and her throat felt as dry as the Sahara desert. "How are you so chipper?" she asked. Surely he would be someone who would easily be a foul mood due to a hangover.
"I don't really have a hangover."
"What?" she said in disbelief. "But you passed out before me! Oh wait," she stood up and shouted "I won the drinking game! I was the winner!" she shouted at the top of her lungs despite her sore throat. The shouting not only disturbed those that were still sleeping but it worsened everyones' headaches, including her own. No-one really cared that she won. She guessed some people probably couldn't even remember whatever the hell it was she was talking about.
"You may have won the game but at least I don't have a hangover to cry about," he rubbed in as he jumped up and left her to deal with her pain by herself with the other sufferers.
About 10 minutes later he returned to find Elena sprawled all over the beach, an arm over her face, still groaning in pain and he couldn't help but laugh at her.
She removed her arm and squinted at him. "Don't laugh at my pain!" she snapped.
He just continued to smile before he brought the water bottle out from behind his back and started waggling it in front of her. She grabbed the bottle out of his hand and quickly gulped down its contents.
"Aren't you glad I went to get that water the other day?"
She nodded her head violently before she realised that really didn't help with her headache. "Thank you Damon."
He smiled at her appreciation. "It's not over yet."
He brought the other hand that was hidden behind his back in front of her face. He opened up his palm to reveal what he had been hiding. Her eyes widened in amazement.
"Oh my God, is that-"
"I've been upgraded for Jesus to God? Finally! But yes, yes it is."
"I don't know if I should smack you over the head or give you a kiss," she said honestly eagerly grabbing the two aspirin tablets that lay in his palm.
"I'd rather like the latter," Damon informed truthfully as she smiled.
"Well you're not getting either," she claimed as she grabbed the aspirins out of his hands and quickly swallowed them with a gulp of water.
"Now don't tell anyone else about what I just did," he said seriously.
"Why?" she asked one eyebrow raised. "Don't want people to see what a big, cuddly teddy bear you really are?"
He rolled his eyes. "No, more like I don't have enough aspirins to hand out to everyone and so if they find out they'll hate on you for being my favourite."
She grinned at his words feeling special. "I'm your favourite?"
"Seriously that was all you heard? Not the part where I'm actually protecting you and not being a cocky douche?"
"I'm your favourite!" she repeated unable to wipe the grin off her face. The aspirin was doing wonders; she could already feel the pain of her headache dulling down.
"Okay well I'm just gonna go make sure that everyone else at least has some water. I didn't think the whole getting drunk as fucked thing through, now that everyone seems to be dying." He glanced around to see almost everyone either puking or clutching their heads. He couldn't help but laugh at watching Mason clutch his head. His eyes were bloodshot. Not pretty. "The water's going fast. I'll probably have to take another visit to the waterfall. Want to join me?"
"What, right now?" she asked.
"No. I don't think it's a good idea for you to be walking around right now."
"Because of my leg?" she asked, anger starting to build up. "Did I not prove you wrong, the last time you said I couldn't walk to the waterfall?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down Ms Hulk! I meant because of your hangover. We can go in a few hours."
"Oh," she said lamely, feeling bad for jumping to the wrong conclusion.
"Okay, well I'm going to help the others… with the water thing… yeah," he replied just as lamely. What was getting into him? Since when could he not form sentences properly? He was meant to be the King of smooth!
As he turned to walk away, Elena called out his name, stopping him in his tracks.
"Thank you for saving me, Mr Big, Cuddly Teddy Bear," she giggled.
He rolled his eyes and carried on walking away from her. He couldn't stop the small smile that worked itself onto his face due to Elena's childish side.
He was handing out water bottles to various people, all of whom seemed to appreciate it. He noticed Rose lying down on a blanket on the sand by herself and approached her.
"Got a killer headache like everyone else?" he asked as he reached her. She smiled up at him before sitting up. She scooched over to give him space on her blanket.
"No, I don't really suffer from hangovers."
His eyebrows rose, impressed. "Me neither."
"I never got to apologise yesterday when we were going through the plane rubble," she said.
"Apologise?" he stated, but the way his voice rose at the last syllable gave away that it was actually a question. He was a little confused by her need to apologise.
"Well yeah, for my behaviour the other day… not going to help you collect the water after you'd amazingly enough found some."
"Oh that," Damon waved his hand in front, in a gesture that said 'it doesn't matter'. "It's fine, I was annoyed at the time but I'm over it."
"Well I still feel guilty. It's just that I really am scared of the dark. I know it's stupid I'm a 25 year-old woman acting like a 5 year-old but I just can't get over the fear," she explained honestly.
His eyes softened when he saw how truthful she was being. Wouldn't he have laughed at this girl and her fear a week ago? This island was making him a softy. Maybe Elena was right when she called him a big, cuddly bear.
"Hey, it's alright. I'm going to collect water in a few hours, in the daylight this time and you can make up for it by helping get the water with me," he suggested kindly. He didn't know why he felt the need to comfort this woman but it just felt like she needed someone.
"That sounds good," she smiled, genuinely happy to be helping out.
Oh shit. He'd forgotten how he'd just asked Elena to go with him. She wouldn't mind if Rose tagged along, right? Besides three pairs of hands carrying water was better than two, right?
He knitted his eyebrows together when he realised he didn't know if Rose was here alone or if she, like Elena may have gone through a trauma. "Are you here alone?"
She smiled. "Yep," she responded popping the 'p'. "I was travelling to New York to meet my friend, Trevor. He'd transferred from London earlier in the year, due to business. Why were you going to New York?"
He made a 'tut tut' noise with his mouth. "Sorry Rose, but I don't like sharing life stories," he said with his voice laced in sarcasm.
"Is that so?" she said slowly. "Let me guess, troubled childhood?"
He rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone always say that?"
"Because it's true darling."
"Well it looks like you're never going to find out whether it is true or not."
"Don't worry if I just continue to answer your questions, you'll soon feel compelled to answer some of mine."
"Don't count on it," he bit out, not liking the confidence the woman was exuding. "Have you spoken to any of the other girls here?" he asked curious to know why she hadn't latched on to the others, seeing as she was here all by herself. He also had the second agenda of desperately wanting to get the conversation away from his life.
"Have you seen the other girls here?"
"Errrm yeah," he answered confused by the question.
"Have they seemed all that intelligent or kind or even decent to you?"
He thought about it. He had only spoken to Klaus's sister once – what was her name? Rebekah? That one time hadn't been pleasant; it was when he was awoken to her screeching match with Mason. She hadn't seemed all that intelligent. Who else was there? Oh the annoying blonde from the plane who had one hell of a set of lungs. What was her name? Urgh, he didn't care. She was not classified as kind under his books – he hadn't forgotten the cock-blocking that had occurred at the airport.
"Okay so the blondes don't exactly seem like great company but Elena's great."
Rose gave him a pointed look that said 'I don't really think so.'
"She is!" he stressed indignantly. He took a quick glance at her to see she was smiling again. The aspirins had done the trick and now she was playing with the sea. Running close to it but then trying to escape it when the tides came in – just like a young child would do. He couldn't help but smile as he watched her.
Rose followed his gaze and couldn't help the jealousy that lit up inside her. "Are you sure it's not just the fact that you want to get into her pants?"
"What?" he said ripping his gaze away from the gorgeous brunette. "No!" he added hastily. "Elena and I are just friends."
"Can you even do friendship with a girl?" Rose asked not very convinced by his answer at all.
"I'm talking to you aren't I?" he challenged.
"Yep and I'm not entirely convinced that you're not trying to get in to my pants either. How long has it been since you had sex? Surely, this is must be the longest time you've abstained for quite some time."
He rolled his eyes. So she had a point. It had been one of his longest streaks of abstinence but it wasn't like he had the greatest choice to choose from. All the girls on the island were beautiful but he still had standards and he wouldn't lower them to sleep with Rebekah or that other blonde. He glanced at Elena, damn he wanted to fuck her until she couldn't breathe, but they were friends now and so casual sex was a no go. Besides, she deserved more than just sex, but he couldn't give that to her. On top of that, she was still convinced she had a boyfriend. He definitely wouldn't be going anywhere with Elena anytime soon. And Rose, well she seemed like a woman with standards as well; he would have to up his game if he was going to get her to cave.
"You're moving away from the point. You should talk to Elena; she's all those things you wanted. She's intelligent and kind. She's funny and she's really stubborn, which is sort of good and bad. Anyway, I know she could do with some more friends on this island too."
She rolled her eyes, "I'll give her a chance then, but if she doesn't impress, it's you that is gonna have to deal with the consequences. Besides, you're gonna need to stop hogging her for me to get a chance to talk to her."
"I do not hog her!" he said indignantly. Her expression showed that she didn't believe him. "I don't! See look at her now. She's not talking to me right now is she?"
"That's because it's one of those rare occurrences whereby you actually decide to talk to someone else."
"Whatever. If you really feel that way then you better enjoy my presence here with you whilst it lasts."
She smiled. "I am," she responded simply.
His eyes narrowed. "Why are you so willing to talk to me and not others?"
"Oh I spent the first few days talking to everyone else here. You're just the first person I actually like."
"Have I stepped into some kind of alternate universe, whereby people actually like me?"
"Well you're still an ass but still, you've got something that makes you likeable."
"Oooh sounds mysterious." She laughed at him and his weirdness.
Elena quickly grew bored with playing with the water, it would have continued to be fun had she had someone else to play with, but everyone here had a stick up their ass, so it didn't look like that would be happening anytime soon.
She looked up, her eyes immediately searching for Damon. She scanned the area and her eyes came to a stop at his figure sitting on a blanket laughing with Rose.
She felt a stab of jealousy go paining through her heart. Seeing him unconsciously lean into her and laugh at whatever she was saying didn't sit well with her. She was meant to be the only one who made him laugh and smile. She didn't like how Rose could do the same to him.
Realisation dawned on her. She should definitely not be feeling jealous. What she and Damon had was friendship and what he and Rose had was friendship. So why then did she feel like she should go over there and mark her territory? Damon was not hers. Stefan was hers. Her guilt multiplied. Stefan. Why were her thoughts always circling around Damon and not her boyfriend?
She didn't like questioning herself and she really didn't like the answers that they produced. She turned away from Damon and Rose. She needed to get her head together again. She and Damon were friends. Rose and Damon were friends. End of story.
A/N Like I said at the beginning, I'm sorry about the long wait! Wrong Salvatore should be coming to an end soon and so I'll be focusing on this story a lot more after that. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.
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