A/N: After 3x19, Damon mostly stayed away from Elena on screen. It was as if something had happened between them – something we didn't see…

Many thanks to CreepingMuse and RomanticVoltaire for beta-ing this story and helping me keep Elena and Damon fully recognizable as the characters we love. You ladies are marvelous!

Make Me Forget

It was such a terrible idea. Such a terrible idea. So why couldn't she stop thinking about it?

More than anything, Elena wanted to prove that Stefan was wrong about this. He was wrong. Elena refused to believe that she had feelings for Damon. Yes, she found herself gazing at his (soft, inviting) lips when he stood too close to her. Yes, her heart clenched like a fist when he moved toward her. Yes, she might have dreamt of him once or twice and there might have been times that she imagined her hand was Damon's. But that was lust. It was just her dumb body finding his dumb body irresistible. It was simple, animal attraction. Not feelings.

Of course she cared about Damon. She would be the first to admit they had a special relationship, but she didn't love him. She loved Stefan.

She shouldn't have kissed Damon in Denver (despite how good – stop it). Giving in to that part of herself was so unlike her. She had self-control. With her life, she needed it. She was glad to be the rock on whom everyone could depend. She was loyal and willing to make sacrifices to protect her loved ones. Above all, she would never hurt someone she cared about. She would never hurt Damon.

Which is why she couldn't even entertain this idea.

There had to be a way, a different way, to stop the reactions her dumb body had to him - reactions even Stefan had begun to notice. Damon noticed too, of course. Every time she trembled when he gave her that flirty little look (dripping with sex, Rose was right), she knew it seemed like she was leading him on. She hated hurting him. But she couldn't stop.

Maybe she just needed some sleep.

Four hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling can make a terrible idea look less terrible.

She knew it could work because it had before, inadvertently, heartbreakingly, with Matt. Until their first time, her breath had wavered when he was nearby, her heart had clenched at the sight of him, her cheeks had flushed when he touched her. But after they had sex that first time, it was as if her body didn't recognize him anymore. Her attraction was abruptly gone and she couldn't get it back. It was only a matter of time and courage before she would have to break up with him. She hadn't meant for it to happen that way, but she was just done. Cured.

That was exactly what she needed with Damon: a cure. She needed to scratch this itch so she could stop leading him on and stop misleading Stefan. She needed finally to get Damon out of her system. But the thought of remembering it every time she saw him made her stomach lurch with anxiety. By Stefan's side, she would never be able to escape Damon. He would be a constant reminder of her guilt, her indiscretion.

Unless she didn't remember it afterward. Despite her general distaste for compulsion, when it was done for someone's benefit it seemed categorically different to her. Less morally complicated. She could ask Damon to compel her to forget.

It really felt like the only solution and, even though it was an insane idea, she couldn't get it out of her head. It was everything she could do not to go over there right now.

Ironically, if the situation were reversed, if Stefan was the one she couldn't stop fantasizing about, he would agree to her terrible plan in a heartbeat. He always gave her anything she asked for, even if it was crazy. But not Damon. He didn't let her make these kinds of mistakes. He protected her, even from herself. He was her safety valve, her escape hatch.

Perfect. Of course.

Damon would never let her go through with it. She would go over there and propose this terrible idea and he would shut her down immediately, for her own good. And that way she could finally stop considering it. He would save her, like he always did. Or, if nothing else, he would at least provide her with that sabotage she had come to rely on.

She threw some clothes on. Stefan had taken to hunting at night – he wouldn't be at the boarding house till dawn. No time like the present to stop being insane.

Damon answered the door shirtless as if to taunt her, as if he had expected her. Amber bourbon sloshed in his crystal glass. "Elena," he announced to the empty house, a little drunk. "What do you want?"

Elena brushed past him, shivering with the momentary thrill of his (warm, smooth) skin so tantalizingly close. "I need your help."

"Bumpless Damon, at your service," he drawled.

She squinted into the dark room, desperately doubting he could resist that familiar, frustrating bump. Still, she was shaking like a racehorse at the gate. She steeled herself against her body's anticipation, certain it wouldn't amount to anything. She was just here to ask and get shot down. That was all. "Damon," she began faintly, "I love Stefan."

"Oh. Glad we cleared that up." He downed his drink in one mouthful and turned away to pour himself another.

"Stefan is getting better now – I know you see it, too – and he needs me. He loves me."

"Why are you telling me this?"

She was glad he wasn't looking at her. It would make the request easier. "You know that I want you. I hate that I do, but I do." He set the bottle down, his glass still empty. "I need to choose Stefan – I'm going to choose Stefan – but I cannot stop wanting you no matter how much I try. No matter what I do. When I'm near you I can't think. My body just wants you and I can't control it."

"So what do you want me to do about it?" he breathed.

She swallowed. It was okay to ask because he would say no. "I want you to have sex with me and then I want you to make me forget it."

He sighed, shaking his head slowly, heavily. "Why don't you just take care of it the old fashioned way like the rest of us?"

She barked an angry laugh, the full weight of her burden crashing in on her. "Don't you think I've tried? I have tried everything – everything, Damon! I'm possessed, like it doesn't matter what I think or want or decide, my body has its own agenda, and it's you. All you. The way you move, the way your lips feel, the way you look at me -"

Before she realized it, Damon had pressed her up against the wall, his breath hot on her face. "The way I look at you?"

Her heart pounded outward against his chest. "I know what I'm asking." She couldn't stop looking at his lips, imagining them parting against hers. Any second now, he would say no and this would be over.

"You really don't." He was holding back, but Elena was sure she'd be climbing into her car in less than a minute. "Are you sure your little plan is even going to work? You're only going to forget being with me tonight, not how you feel."

"But I won't have this need for you anymore. I'll get you out of my system. It'll work." It was futile to argue the merits. Come on Damon, she thought, turn me down. "I think I could put all of this – put you – behind me if I could just satisfy these urges. They're so… insistent," she groaned as she felt him grind his hips slowly against hers.

"You want me behind you?" he asked, his low voice drenched with double-entendre.

"Y-y-yes." Now would be the perfect opportunity, she registered weakly, for Damon to do something infuriating.

He was a hair's breadth from her mouth and her entire body screamed for him. She balled her fingers into fists to keep them from sliding up his naked chest. "This is a terrible idea," he rasped, skimming his cheek against hers and grazing her ear with his lips.

She breathed in the leftover scent of leather on his neck and tasted his warm skin with her trembling tongue. "I have to, Damon. Unless you refuse."

He captured her earlobe between his teeth and she whimpered at the rush of his breath in her ear. He found her thigh with his right hand, clawed up along its length to her hip, then inside her waistband to grip her ass, to press her against him harder. Her breath was ragged. She needed his lips.

With his left hand, he unclasped her bra and slipped his hand around to tweak her nipple, pinching it past simple pleasure to something tinged with pain. Her hands explored his body without her permission, enjoying all the places her eyes had once lingered too long: the angle of his hipbone, the slope of his ribs, the soft skin along his spine.

He still hadn't kissed her mouth. His lips and teeth had made slow, devastating work of her neck, leaving her so weak-kneed she had to rely on the wall behind her to keep her up. But she needed his lips on hers, she needed that connection. She pulled his head from its descent between her breasts to bring it to her lips but he stopped short, gazing a moment at her open mouth before burying his face in the tender skin along her collarbone.

The deprivation drove her further. Her fingers were fearless, covering his undulating muscles as he ground against her, then sliding in front to grasp his erection. She grimaced internally at how similar it was to Stefan's. But that was where the similarity ended. Where Stefan was careful with her, even polite, Damon was invasive, pushing her, tempting her.

She glanced up at his face and her heart broke a little as their eyes met. His agony was plain to see. Agony she was causing, because he loved her and this was what he had wanted and he was giving it to her so that she could be done with him. The silent acknowledgment of what this cost him passed between them. Her head began to tilt and she took a breath, ready to tell him to stop, that it wasn't fair, that she was so sorry to have hurt him like this.

But he wasn't going to let her off that easy.

In a heartbeat they were beside the couch. His practiced hands whisked off their clothes and she felt the point of no return fly past. He wasn't going to stop her. There was no escape hatch but her own will, and it was no match for her heart-pounding, mind-numbing need.

Before she could offer even a hollow whimper of protest, he had flipped her around. He clutched her against him with one strong hand, his mouth searching for the most sensitive spot under her ear, while his other hand tugged at her thigh, pulling her legs apart just enough to slide an insistent finger inside her from behind. Slowly he eased them onto their knees, his teeth and tongue at play on her neck and shoulder. She could feel him hard against her, wanted more, wanted him deeper. She arched her back, leaned back onto his hand, circled her hips to encourage him. He didn't need it. He slipped his finger out and in one swift thrust plunged himself into her, pounding her with a punishing rhythm. It was exactly what she needed; she met him thrust for thrust. His hands cupped her breasts, his body pressing her forward so that she had to brace herself against the couch cushions. She thought she would explode. She wanted to explode.

It would have been safer had they finished like that, all animal lust. But their rhythm slowed, became less about thrust and more about the sensuality of in and out. He softly caressed the length of her back, sucked at her earlobe, tenderly stroked her cheek. He showed her how good it could feel – how good they could feel. It was more than the overwhelming swirl of sensation in those last minutes. And when she came, his fingers winding slow, unrelenting rings around her button even as he moved inside her, she was glad he couldn't see her face.

Her breath was finally slow and calm. Her heart's suffocating clench was gone. It had worked, she could tell. Her body was finally satisfied. She lay beside him, her head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder, so content that the change in Damon took her by surprise.

"Elena, please don't ask me to do this," he whispered into her hair.

"A little late, don't you think?" she protested.

"No," he said. "Don't ask me to make you forget."

She boosted herself onto an elbow. "But that was the whole point."

His face darkened with a rueful grin. "You have this all figured out, don't you? Now that you're all well-fucked and done with us, you definitely won't find yourself here tomorrow night, me answering the door conveniently shirtless and drunk." He sat up and yanked his pants on.

"Damon, this wasn't about any kind of us, and now I can finally stop hurting you by reacting to you as if there were. Please don't make this harder than it has to be."

His blue eyes glistened with pain and firelight. "Think about it. How can you be sure this was the first time? You seemed to know your way around me pretty well."

Elena stared at him, her heart sinking. "I would know." But he was right: she couldn't possibly be sure.

He calmly returned her stare. "Of course you'd know. Now get dressed. My compulsion won't be very convincing if you wake up naked in my living room."

She couldn't speak while she got dressed. Desire was tightening around her heart again. The sight of him buckling his belt (so temptingly low across his hips) sent a shiver over her skin. The calming effect she had planned on had lasted less than five minutes. He wasn't even remotely out of her system. What did that mean? Was Stefan right after all?

She shrugged her jacket on. What had she done? She had to face the possibility that if her body was still this insistent, maybe it wasn't just her body that wanted him. Maybe she did have feelings for him. Maybe – but she knew that she did. Of course she knew. This whole terrible plan had been an elaborate rationalization to satisfy her confused, longing heart. How cruel of her to pretend it had been anything else. Not anymore, she told herself: she would beg his forgiveness, ask him not to compel her, and handle this like the strong young woman she knew herself to be. Damn the consequences.

But suddenly Damon was in front of her, his eyes sad but commanding. "You came over to talk about Stefan. Nothing happened."

Elena blinked, waved, and left.