Not a bad place to be

Summary: Damon and Elena have the house to themselves – late night chatting ensues. Post 4x23.

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Just like to play with them.

For a couple of seconds, the crackling of the fire next to his head was the only thing he was able to fathom over the sounds of his heaving chest und the blackness behind his heavy eyelids … the only thing absolutely clear in his mind - that this woman was gonna be the death of him eventually … not that that was a new development or anything.

Still struggling for breath he shouldn't even need, Damon could feel the bemused grin on Elena's face where it was pressed against his neck, swollen lips and a lazy tongue nursing the healing wound her impossibly sharp fangs had caused in his now torn flesh only minutes earlier.

"You okay there?" his little predator finally asked, raising her upper body off of him with the help of shaky arms propped up on his chest.

A wicked grin reached his lips before his eyes even opened to take in her gloriously naked form straddling him, beautifully messed-up sex-hair falling in waves over her shoulders, the breathtaking sight illuminated only by the dim light coming from the fireplace right next to them.

"Yeah, never been better, in fact", he stuttered out, still catching his breath. "You just … took me by surprise, that's all."

Elena grinned down at him, leaning forward so her dark locks tickled his naked chest. "My bad. Won't happen again."

Before she even knew what was happening, Damon had pinned her down underneath him with miraculously newfound strength. Giggling at the panicked look in his icy-blue eyes, she watched as he brought an outstretched index finger to her lips, silencing any further crazy talk. "Don't even joke about that!"

A sharp little fang nicked the offered finger, taking him by surprise once more, before his sneaky girlfriend started licking a couple drops of blood off of it. Her face all sharp teeth, black veins and deep red eyes, she replied in a throaty whisper: "Promise."

More than satisfied with her answer, Damon was overcome with exhaustion again, falling down beside her on the Persian rug in front of the fireplace where she had attacked him earlier. Wrapping the old quilt she had dragged from the back of the couch around them, more or less successfully banishing the memory of his mother herself sewing the same with meticulous care from the forefront of his mind, he let Elena snuggle as close to him as possible, her naked curves pressed against his skin in all the right places.

He then sighed contentedly, comfortably warm in between the fire and her body, her head resting on his outstretched arm, brown curls spread all over his chest. In fact, he must have been a saint in some former life and was only now able to cash in those leftover karma points – there was no way he could possibly deserve to be this happy otherwise.

"I don't think I ever want to move again", the woman at his side breathed out after a while, just as content as he was, idle fingers drawing lazy patterns on his skin, unable not to touch him. "Let's stay here for at least a week."

He chuckled, moving his head to the side to press a kiss into the mane of her hair. "I know your brother is basically a zombie at this point, but maybe we should still try not to scar him for life for a while, don't you think?"

Elena slapped his chest at the comment, couldn't help but smile herself, though. A part of her still couldn't believe that Jeremy was truly back for good. She was so used to losing people – the concept of actually getting them back escaped her. But she had vowed to herself not to dwell on it for now – her little brother was fine, she was safely tucked away in the arms of the man she loved … for the first time in what felt like forever, she could actually enjoy a carefree summer with the people closest to her – and she was determined not to ruin that by worrying too much. Even if it only was the calm before the next storm – she found she had earned the right to revel in it for as long as she possibly could.

"Where is Little Gilbert, anyway?" Damon's voice brought her back to the present. "We should probably move this upstairs before he takes the next break from his beloved new X-Box." He made an attempt to get up, but Elena wouldn't move her head from his shoulder, the wicked grin from earlier in the evening returning to her lips.

"He isn't here", she started to explain upon her boyfriend's startled expression. "He had been going stir crazy all cooped up in the house all day. So when Liz got some scoop on Tyler's whereabouts this morning, he jumped at the chance to go Hybrid hunting with Caroline. They will be gone for the rest of the week."

Damon's eyebrows lifted even further. "You mean – we have the house to ourselves for 7 consecutive days?" Well, that certainly explained her lack of hesitation when it had come to living-room sex. Hell, she had started ripping off his clothes before he had properly shut the front door behind them. And just to think … a week alone, just the two of them in the house, no little brothers around whatsoever? His mind wandered to his sturdy granite kitchen countertops of its own accord.

Not that he wasn't glad that Jeremy was back to the land of the living – again. He was freaking ecstatic, really. The look of pure joy on Elena's face when she had finally accepted that he was for real had lifted a weight off his chest he hadn't even realized had been there. And he wasn't just relieved for her sake, he was also genuinely happy to have the kid back in his life, as he had begrudgingly admitted to his girlfriend after an awkward group hug she had roped the both of them into …

… what still didn't mean he wanted their newest addition to the walking dead around 24/7, though.

As expected, Elena had been hovering around the poor boy for the entirety of the two weeks he had been back, only ever halfway relaxing when Jeremy would go to sleep, which reminded him: "You actually let him out of your sight for more than 5 minutes at a time just so you could ravish me on the floor? I'm flattered." He suggestively waggled his eyebrows at her, eliciting the sweetest laugh. God, he loved that sound.

"Well, Caroline has been instructed to send me proof of life every full hour, so it's all good", Elena replied sheepishly.

As if on cue, a vibrating sound from the coffee table behind her disturbed the heavenly silence in the room, making her turn to grab her phone. A happy smile later she held it up for him to see, showing a picture of her little brother in the driver's seat of Caroline's Ford Fiesta, glancing at the camera mid-eye roll.

Damon smirked. "No wonder the kid needed to get away from here – keeps you from smothering him in his sleep during one of the five times a night you go to check up on him to make sure he's still breathing and everything."

"You noticed that?" Biting her lower lip, Elena buried her face in between his neck and shoulder, embarrassed at getting caught. And though she knew he was mostly joking, she added: "I know I have been a little overbearing lately. God, I pretty much drove him out of the house, didn't I?"

"Whoa, stop right there", her boyfriend interrupted right away, lifting up her chin with one finger so she would look at him. "Jeremy can be glad to have you as his sister – and he knows that. It's just the fact that he can't really leave the house due to his zombie-status - frightening the angry villagers and whatnot - that drives him up the wall. He'll be fine once we've sorted this out."

She nodded, pushing herself up a little to press a thankful kiss to his lips. "You really think we can fix this by compelling the entire town?"

"There is no vervain in the water supply anymore, Liz is already on board … as soon as the next town-wide event comes around, we'll get started on it. With Barbie and Wolf boy hopefully back by then, it shouldn't really take the four of us all that long." Damon shrugged, still pretty confident in their plan. "We should probably get rid of his headstone, though."

A strangled sound from his side made him stiffen, noticing Elena's face buried underneath her hair, quietly shaking against him.

Why, oh why did he have to start talking about her brother's grave? How stupid could he be? Mentally impaling himself on a giant wooden stake, Damon rolled onto his side, one hand already petting his girlfriend's head, trying to soothe her. "Shhh … I didn't mean to … Jeremy is fine, he's alive, everything is gonna be okay …" He really sucked at this.

Slapping a hand in front of her mouth, Elena's head rose from his arm, turning into his direction to ease his little panic attack. Taken aback, he realized that there were indeed tears in her eyes – but she was far from crying. No, the reason she was trembling so violently in his arms, was the uncontrollable laughter rocking her entire body. "I'm sorry", she managed to choke out between gasps for breath, her hands moving to his cheeks, caressing his skin with her thumbs.

He just continued looking at her like she had lost her mind, making her laugh even harder, bringing her to eventually sit up fully, resting her forehead against his. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Why would a nervous breakdown startle me?" He deadpanned, leaning back to search her still watery Bambi eyes for any cause for alarm. For the life of him, he couldn't find any.

Elena just kept smiling, shaking her head at his worried expression. "I'm not having a breakdown, I swear. But when you mentioned taking down my brother's headstone … I realized, this is my life now." She gestured at the room, then at the two of them. "My brother just came back from Supernatural Purgatory thanks to an overdose of Black Magic; my boyfriend is a vampire – but what the hell, so am I; and maybe the most surreal of it all, nobody has tried to kill any of us in two entire weeks. It's kind of funny, if you think about it."

Damon shook his head. "Yeah … no, I just don't see it."

At that she rolled her eyes at him, driving a hand through her unruly hair. "Remember the girl you met two years ago in the middle of nowhere, the one who didn't know what to do with the rest of her mortal existence, or even how to simply break the heart of a boy she didn't see a future with? If anyone would have told her that she would spend the summer before College happily in the arms of the vampire she loved, contemplating the rest of eternity? Well, she would have probably lost it."

He swallowed, still not used to hearing her talk about him in combination with words like 'love' and 'eternity', but she simply took it as a sign to continue. "Sometimes I still think I'm gonna wake up any second and all this will turn out to have been an overly vivid fever dream."

Now he smirked, all of a sudden understanding completely. "Tell me about it, that's what I think every morning when I wake up and see you asleep in bed next to me. Every day, I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm actually awake."

Elena's forehead crinkled, one hand moving towards his cheek, holding him in place to make sure he wouldn't be able to escape her gaze. "Hey, you realize that I'm not just gonna get up and leave in the middle of the night, right?"

A halfhearted smile appeared on his features as he closed his eyes, moving his face into the warmth of her touch. "Sure. That doesn't make it any easier to comprehend why you are there in the first place, though. So maybe it's me who is dreaming."

"Don't!" She interjected, pulling her hand away from his face to wrap the quilt even tighter around her upper body. "Don't say that. Don't even think that, please." But really, could she blame him, after everything?

Damon just kept smiling, grabbing the withdrawing hand of hers to hold between them. "I'm trying, believe me. But I'm … me - can't help waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know … especially since that's what I probably deserve."

Elena sighed, pulling her hand away again, her expression clouding considerably. This was so not what she had planned for their first night alone in the house since what felt like forever.

"You really are an idiot, you know that?" she therefore threw at him, making his lips move upwards in amusement. "I love you! No matter whether you deserve it or not – just like you love me in ways you most likely shouldn't. And there is really no point in either one of us sitting here and waiting for that to change, may it be 5, 50 or 500 years from now." It was scary, loving the way he loved – that didn't mean she would ever want to miss it.

Floored by her little outburst – and granted, a little terrified as well - he leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together again, one hand absently playing with a strand of her hair. "God, I want to believe that's true. But knowing myself, how could I not be afraid I'd find a way to screw this up somehow?"

"You mean more than usually?" she deadpanned with an eye roll. "Not to give you a free pass or anything, but I doubt even you could ever screw up that royally."

He chuckled, lying back down with his hands intertwined on top of his chest. "You sure know how to get a guy's hopes up."

Elena shook her head, more than tired of seemingly having the same conversation over and over. "I guess it's partly my fault – we never really talked after everything – about us, I mean. With the Supernatural Apocalypse, Jeremy coming back, Katherine turning human, there was just too much going on. But maybe we should clear up some things now." Her tone didn't leave any room for an argument.

Nevertheless, Damon groaned, moving an arm to cover his eyes in frustration. "We already did, remember? Sire bond's gone, I'm a terrible person, you're not sorry. Didn't that about cover it?"

A pillow flung into his face was the answer. Apparently not then …

"You're not a terrible person – only at times that you want to be. And just because we don't do apologies, doesn't mean we both haven't done things we might regret." She knew she had.

Damon sighed, propping himself up on his elbows. "What's done is done, Elena. We're here now, that's all that matters."

"If that were true, you wouldn't still be doubting this." She motioned from him to herself and back, indicating the happy little bubble they had created for themselves in the past couple of weeks, then leaned down toward him, searching his look under her long lashes. "And I know that's at least a little my fault."

Avoiding her searing gaze, he shook his head. "The sire bond wasn't your fault. If anything, it was mine – being my usual irresistible self and everything."

Elena simply rolled her eyes at the lame joke – his go-to-way for dispelling tension. "The bond wasn't – what happened before kinda was, though."

Damon threw his head back, casting a questioning look her way. "Now what terrible thing could your formerly human self have done to the big bad vampire? Enlighten me, please."

Sighing, she shook her head, her look wandering past his to the dancing flames in the fireplace. "You know what I'm talking about – a certain conversation we had the night that I … turned."

His eyes closed at the mere mention of the date, every fiber of his being against going there. "You mean the night that you died", he corrected her sharply, making her head fly back to meet his gaze. "Because that's what I knew had happened when Ric's evil alter ego stopped beating the shit out of me long enough to die in my arms – right then and there I knew that you were dead. So believe me, when I think back to that worst night of my life, it isn't a phone call I remember. And honestly, I'd prefer not to remember it at all." Now it was his turn to stare into the flames, trying with all his might to swallow down the sudden onslaught of emotions.

Elena just watched his naked back for a second, then rested her chin on his shoulder, her arms coming around to embrace him from behind, shaking hands roaming his chest in reassurance that she was still there, that it had all turned out alright. "I regret a lot of things that happened that night", she started, pressing a kiss against his shoulder blade. "Saving Matt's life isn't one of them. But at the same time I might never forgive myself for letting you go through that."

Damon grabbed her hands resting on his chest and leaned back against her, finding comfort in her touch. "It's okay – just don't let it happen again", he assured her with a smirk.

"It's not okay, Damon", she argued with a sigh, shamefully hiding her face against his skin. "It's really not okay that I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye to you."

He turned his head around as far as he could, but she still wouldn't meet his eyes. "What do you mean?"

She exhaled against his back, gripping him even tighter. "I couldn't breathe, thinking you might die along with Klaus … being there, with you, when … I will never be able to say goodbye to you, I wouldn't survive it. And yes, I know how selfish that is."

An involuntary smile grazed his features. He knew it was wrong, but the thought made him happy. "I know the feeling."

"Also, I guess I partly tried telling myself that as long as I didn't acknowledge the possibility that you might actually die, you'd be fine. You had to be." Her head came up behind his shoulder again, a sheepish smile on her lips. "You always are."

"We always are", he corrected her, squeezing her hands tightly.

"I was just as afraid of losing you then as I was afraid of letting you in – because I knew that as soon as I did, there would be no going back. So I couldn't tell you what you wanted to hear that night, hell I didn't dare to admit it to myself." She sighed against him once more, resting her head against his back.

Damon shook his head, still smiling wistfully. "I shouldn't have pushed you to make a decision you weren't ready for. Not that I could have blamed you for the one you made." He let go off her hands for a second to point his thumbs at himself. "Not exactly boyfriend material over here."

She slapped his shoulder with a roll of her eyes, causing him to reclaim her hands under choked laughter. "It wasn't just you I was afraid of, idiot. It was us. What we can do to each other – you might make me feel more alive than anyone, but you can also hurt me like no one else."

He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off before he could get a word in: "Don't even try to fight me on this. I happen to know that I as well have hurt you in that way too often already."

"How about you try to kiss it all better?", he offered up in solution, his signature smirk appearing out of nowhere as he turned his head back around to her.

Mimicking his expression to the best of her abilities, she leaned forward and playfully bit down on his shoulder with blunt teeth, eliciting a growl from deep within his throat. "You know I'd love to, but I have a feeling we'd never finish this conversation if I did."

He groaned, his head falling back against her. "There's more?"

She nodded against him before bringing her chin back up to rest on his shoulder again. "You have to know why I picked Stefan that night", she continued, even though she hated having to bring up his name in this conversation.

"You wanna talk about my brother right now?" he asked, exasperated.

She just glared at him at the interruption, making him shut up. "It was different between us back then – now I think it was because I had already let go off him at that point. He'd hurt me in the worst possible ways that year, and I had come out stronger for it – thanks to you being my rock through it all." She paused to regard him with a smile. "Saying goodbye to him would have been hard – but I could have done it. I had been managing to go on without him for so long by then … that's why I made the only decision I could have made that night – not being with Stefan, but saying goodbye to him, giving both of us some much needed closure. Only then, he didn't die. And I woke up the next morning and had to think about forever."

"That can be scary", he agreed, remembering his first days of eternity, betrayed by his brother and still thinking he had lost the love of his life for good – if only he had known … Damon closed his eyes against the memory, not allowing anything to taint this moment where only the gentle sound of her voice really mattered – after all, this little chat had already turned out way better than he had initially thought.

She nodded against him. "Plus, vampire heightened emotions aren't really helpful in figuring out your mental standing – bloodlust pretty much drowns out everything else. Couldn't very well rock the boat any more by admitting to myself what an idiot I'd been."

"You got around to that pretty quickly, I recall", he deadpanned, bringing one of her hands to his lips to kiss it chastely. "That is, if you ripping off my clothes was any indication." He felt the giggle escaping her mouth.

"Didn't hear you complain then", she reminded him gleefully, then turned thoughtful. "But it's really amazing, how cathartic such a Hunter's Curse can be."

Damon grinned. "I gotta send Connor a Thank-You-note to Purgatory."

"Too bad we could only enjoy that catharsis for one night – before a certain someone decided I was acting all sired." She grabbed a fistful of his dark hair, not-so-gently pulling his head back so he would look at her, making her notice how he grimaced at the reminder of his worst nightmare come to life.

His body stiffened under her touch, so she disentangled both her hands to turn him fully around to face her, making sure he would listen for once. "You wouldn't believe how angry I was back then – at you for not believing me, at myself for planting doubt in you … at Stefan and Caroline for riling you up in the first place."

"They were worried about you", he tried to defend the dynamic duo, only to be interrupted with another stern glance.

"No, they wanted to turn me back into the scared little girl who couldn't admit what she wanted", she corrected, lingering resentment evident in her tone. "Stefan was too hurt to acknowledge what he knew we had and Caroline never learned to stay out of other people's business. They were the only ones making me actually feel sired."

Her little outburst brought a smile back to his lips, his entire being visibly relaxing, so she put her arms around his shoulders, locking her hands behind his neck to bring him closer until their foreheads were touching. "You have always known how I feel about you, even when it was me who fought you on it. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise."

"Not even you? I'll hold you to that." He lowered his head to her neck, lips moving deliberately to seek out her pulse point, their conversation finished to his satisfaction.

Elena let out a moan the second his fangs grazed her skin, but still managed to shake her head against him. "Especially not me", she emphasized, "in particular when my emotions are shut off and I'm trying to push you away."

At that, he sobered up, fangs disappearing in his gums. "You were a little too convincing at that."

She simply shrugged, a sad smile appearing with the memory. "You hurt the ones you love. You invented that, remember?"

Swallowing, he rested his head against her chest, taking an exhausted breath and surprising her by not even attempting to remove the tightly held fabric of the quilt from her skin. "Yeah well, maybe I forgot how hard it is to remember that when it's directed at you. Bitchy Elena kinda wrecked me."

Elena rested her chin on top of his head with a smile. "She wasn't a big fan of you either – God, when you threatened to force me to take the cure, I just snapped. I really wanted to rip your head off in that moment. Sometimes I think we can both be glad that Rebekah decided to snap your neck instead."

Damon stiffened once again - remembering the list of things he screwed up during her off-phase always made him cringe. "I was an asshole, I know. I just didn't know what else to do anymore."

"You were desperate", she conceded, her hands stroking through his hair a lot more gently than before. "As desperate as I get when you manage to get yourself infected with werewolf venom at least once every year." She didn't see his face, but just knew he rolled his eyes at the remark. "God knows if you'd actually gone through with curing me, I would have been furious … just as furious as you would have been two weeks ago if Klaus had shown up only five minutes later."

He pressed his head even closer against her skin, inhaling deeply. "Difference being that you actually wanted to be human again."

At that, an infuriated shriek escaped her mouth as once again ungentle hands pulled his head away from the comfort of her body. His dumbfounded expression at the sudden change in her tone might have looked cute under any other circumstances.

"You still don't get it, do you?" She just shook her head at her own question – he didn't, obviously. "There was no cure for me the second I found out there was only one dose of the damned thing."

His puppy-dog eyes beginning to get to her, she put her palms on his cheeks, thumbs stroking his skin in the way she knew would soothe him. "It was either both of us or none. I thought you understood that."

With a sad sigh, his hands closed around her wrists. "I told you I wasn't gonna take it."

Elena grinned down at him with a roll of her eyes. "And I would have tried to find a way to convince you – and if not …" a happy shrug followed. "We'd be right back where we are now." She rocked against him playfully, eliciting a groan from him. "Which isn't such a bad place to be, if you ask me."

"As hard as it is to argue with that statement right now …" especially since a certain part of his anatomy wasn't even attempting to try. "I never wanted you to give up the life you always wanted … not for me."

"For us", she corrected patiently. "Relationships between humans and vampires don't work, remember? Besides, it's not like you could turn back the clock – I'd still be the same person, human or vampire. What was I supposed to do, take the cure and turn my back on the mysterious stranger I met on the side of the road who turned my life upside down? I couldn't do that to you as much as you could never do it to me."

Damon swallowed, not sure how to reply – too terrified by her implications. "So what if I do screw up, huh? What happens at the next bump in the road – when you'll realize what a mistake you have made?" He wouldn't be able to deal with her blaming him for being a vampire – like he had blamed Stefan and Katherine for longer than he cared to admit.

"You think I'm gonna regret it? Like you regret it", she asked in a mocking tone, her fingers playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck. "Which is funny since someone told me last year how he wouldn't have chosen any differently – since then he wouldn't have met me. Can't you just accept that that sentiment goes both ways?"

He was honestly starting to feel a little dizzy after all her little confessions. Did he regret anything? How could he, with Elena's naked body within touching distance – and him being allowed to touch whenever the hell he wanted … not that he regretted anything a year ago, being all sweaty and delirious, so long as it was her he was snuggled up to on his deathbed. Now, feeling more alive than ever before in his entire existence – plus sweaty and delirious for completely different reasons – yeah, no regrets. But could he promise her the same, be it now or some undefined years, decades, centuries in the future?

His girlfriend just grinned at the panic-stricken look he was starting to display, bringing his head closer until their noses were touching. "I just scared the shit out of the great Damon Salvatore, didn't I?"

Damon had the sense to at least shake his head at the question. "No, I'm up for anything you throw at me – and well, since I haven't managed to scare you away yet …" Something he truly didn't have a credible explanation for.

Swallowing down the sudden lump in his throat, he reached out to bring her even closer than before, his other hand moving to play with the pink strands in her hair as his lips brushed over hers ever so lightly. "I love you."

And where months ago, such an admission would have made her recoil with that Bambi-look in her eyes that told him he was overstepping the lines she had drawn in the sand of their then fragile relationship, now all he got in return was a smile as wide as he had ever seen grace her features and a mumbled: "Love you, too", against his skin.

Somehow even happier than just mere hours ago – how she managed to do that every time, he would never know – he leaned back into her, eager fingers at the hem of the fabric clutched to her chest.

She drew back quickly, though, the predatory glint from earlier in the night back in her beautiful brown eyes. "But hey, since we're being honest and everything – there is one thing you still have to make up for."

He watched with a yet again dumbfounded expression as she stood up from the floor as gracefully as one possibly could, taking the quilt with her and leaving him sitting stark naked in front of the fire. Half his brain was busy trying to remind him of all the things he ever did to her that he had yet to atone for, the other half recognizing that her movements were far too seductive to not result in something very, very fun for the both of them, all the while his eyes never left her as she took a couple steps through the room, swaying her hips for his benefit until she eventually came to a stop at the doorframe to the hallway.

Her look found his over her shoulder, no more questions as to her intentions possible as she started to recall: "Someone once told me he wanted to throw me back in his bed and never let me leave – and then he didn't deliver!"

The second the quilt hit the floor, all he could make out were glimpses of toned legs and olive skin disappearing around the corner, daring him to follow …

Why was he still sitting on the floor again, trying to remember his own name?

She had hardly reached the staircase when he came to his senses again, speeding to get in front of her, wasting no time before pressing her giggling form against the banister. "My bad", he breathed into her ear, causing her to shiver against him. "Won't happen again."

His little minx wrapped her arms around his neck, allowing him to pick her up bridal style to carry her up the stairs. "I'll hold you to that."

They both knew she would.

By the time Jeremy Gilbert got home from a trip that involved way too much time in an enclosed space with an overly chatty Caroline Forbes, a forgotten quilt in the middle of the hallway and discarded clothes all over the parlor reminded him all over again why he should never ever set foot in Damon's wing of the Boarding House.

A grimace on his face, the teenager retreated into the other direction – his room not without reason located on the opposite end of the mansion.

Not for the first time he was actually grateful for the noise-cancelling headphones Damon had thrown in his general direction pretty much the very day that he had come back … back when all he had wanted to do, of course, was punch the leering smirk right off the older man's face.

It was gonna be a long summer …

The end