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cosmic-adventurers · 4 months ago

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Yay, chapter 2! This submission is for @fandom-free-bingo Tolkien Edition (Prompt: Hunted)

Summary: Having trouble sleeping and desperate to finally get some peace, Elena mistakenly eats some vervain cookies she finds in her freezer that Jeremy made before he left for Colorado when he was too high to tell the difference between vervain and weed, making her temporarily resistant to compulsion at just the right moment. So, when she arrives to save Damon from Rebekah the next day, he can’t exactly get her to leave.

Takes place during 3X18.

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries

Pairing: Damon/Elena

Rating: M

Banter, mutual pining, unresolved sexual tension, unresolved romantic tension, rescue mission, humor, hunted

Word count: 1,824

(No CW for this chapter, but the previous one has aftermath of torture, canonical.)

When the world around Elena returned, the swirling wind and scenery finally coalescing into stationary surroundings, she found herself in the passenger seat of her car, trembling from adrenaline. Through her panting breaths and thunderous cacophony in her chest, she vaguely noted Damon's hand gently fastening her seatbelt and closing her door, before he was right next to her in the driver's seat in the very next instant.

"I – I could've done that," she finally found the will to say, as her respiratory levels returned to fairly manageable levels, though the dizziness had yet to abate. That, or there were two Damons next to her.

Now, there's an idea…

Forcing herself to focus on definitely not all the exciting possibilities of finding herself in the company of Damon and his no-less-sexy twin, Elena cleared her throat weakly, looking for a distraction.

Any distraction. Because she especially didn't want to acknowledge those – the even scarier, deeper, hidden feelings that her mind was desperately trying to cover with unabashed desire.

Elena felt like a veritable nesting doll of denial, yearning for any diversion from the tempest in her heart when – wait a minute…

And the perfect opportunity presented itself.

She balked when she finally realized that Damon was in the driver's seat – of her car! The nerve. And, as a bonus, she'd have a viable outlet for all this pent-up frustration that was definitely not her mind and body wanting to celebrate barely escaping a dangerous situation through copious amounts of –

Nope, not going there.

With the one she –

Nope, nope, nope. Danger zone. Avoid.

Focusing all that not-sexual, nope, and definitely not that, not-at-all tension into her tone, she leveled Damon with the most annoyed look she could muster as he started the ignition and pulled out of her 'parking spot' – her car haphazardly abandoned outside of the mansion while she ran inside for her impulsive rescue mission. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Getting us as far away from Dysfunction Junction as possible," he replied distractedly, pulling the car onto the road with a speed kindly described as leisurely tornado. "I think Mystic Falls' highway mall cops are the least of our problems now."

"I meant – why are you driving? It's my car."

"Because your very human equilibrium is probably a mess for now from being carried at 200 miles per hour, and I'm not exactly in the mood to become a humanoid pretzel when you wrap us around a tree," Damon said, turning a corner as the car steadily accelerated.

"Hey, it's a step up from 'avant-garde blood fountain,' right?" The slight upturn of Damon's lips created a worrisome flutter in her heart and Elena ardently fought to sober herself. "I'm fine."

"Okay." Both Damons looked at her dubiously, their voices so in sync that they vocally merged into one smug jackass, raising their right hands. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Four. Or, at least each of them was holding up two. Right. Looks like no sexy identical twin, then.

"You could have just run slower." She pouted. Her arms crossed over her chest of their own accord, as she waited for that terribly inconvenient dizziness to abate.

"Couldn't let you one-up me on the gallant rescue, now could I?"

She wanted to slap, no kiss – no, slap that smug look right off his unfairly handsome face. "So, you just wanted to play the snarky knight in snooty, haute-couture armor?"

Damon pulled an expression straight out of her great-aunt Myrtle's pearl-clutching collection. She'd have to ask him someday where he learned to look so theatrically offended. "I'm not a medieval cop, Elena! That's Stefan." He grinned. "I'm the guy who robs his fancy stagecoach."

Elena's lips curved into a smile, genuinely amused. "I'm sorry – I didn't mean to offend your … rebellious sensibilities."

"Well, you did. Because I'm more of a dashing rogue."

"Then again, I'm the one who saved you. So maybe I'm the dashing rogue," Elena replied cheekily, barely restraining herself from sticking her tongue out at him.

"You've got a ways to go from blood hustler to rogue. Lucky for you, I'm an excellent teacher." The sultry timbre was just unfair, and she knew that he knew exactly what he was doing. Jerk.

Time to call his bluff. "Oh yeah? And what exactly do these lessons entail?"

He smirked, leveling her with that 'eye thing' that had the frustrating side-effect of turning everything inside her to jelly. Thankfully, it was at that precise moment that Stefan decided to call, because Damon absolutely looked like he was about to go in for the kill, and a girl's innate sense of denial only went so far.

"Excellent timing as always, Stef," Damon drawled, looking every bit as frustrated as she felt. Good. That'll show him. "Don't tell me you took time away from sculpting your hair to check up. You're going to make me blush –"

"Where are you?" Baby bro sounded like he was prepping to film a commercial for Preparation H – not that this was out of the ordinary for him or anything.

"Taking a scenic joyride with my favorite dashing rogue padawan," Damon purred, sending a sultry wink over to Elena, mostly to watch her squirm against her own frustration, but also to watch that adorable blush coat her cheeks.

"Damon, this isn't the time!" Stefan sounded so wound-up and emotionally constipated that Damon could practically see the vein protruding on his already overcrowded forehead. Jealousy was not a good look for him, Damon thought, hilarious as it was.

"See, Stef, if you'd learn to diversify your nutrition a bit," Damon said. "Maybe if you ate the occasional hipster, you'd have more fiber in your diet, and –"

Elena took the opportunity to smack Damon on the shoulder, though this did absolutely nothing to hide the smile curving her lips as she tried to sound oh-so-serious. "What is it, Stefan?" She shot Damon a look that he was pretty sure she meant to appear exasperated and admonishing, but the subtle shake of her head and escaped hushed chuckle told an entirely different story. "What's wrong?"

"You both need to get somewhere safe."

"We're on our way back – " Elena began.

"No, it can't be here. They'll know to look for you here. Is there any place the two of you can lay low?"

"What's with all the gravitas and ominous warnings there, Cassandra? Care to vague it up a bit more?"

"Yeah, well, thanks to Elena sneaking away, Klaus apparently no longer trusts us to keep his blood bag safe, so he says he's taking her. And Rebekah wants to kill her. So don't ask me how that's going to work."

"Ooh, a Mikaelson hissy fit? What else is new?"

"You both need to disappear," Stefan stressed, sounding terse, like Paul Mitchell just declared bankruptcy and an everlasting love of natural hair. Klaus and Rebekah want to make an example out of you, Damon. According to them, Elena's little rescue mission humiliated them. It makes them look weak. They're on a rampage – especially since Finn is dead –"

"I don't understand," Elena interrupted. "I thought they were linked – wouldn't that have taken care of both Klaus and Rebekah?"

"Bonnie had to unlink them," Stefan said.

"Has Witchy completely lost it? Why would she do that?"

Stefan was quiet for a moment, and Damon could practically feel the tension coiling in Elena's form before he finally spoke. "Klaus threatened Jeremy. He knows he's in Denver, and he said –"

"Jeremy!?" Elena cried, gripping the seat so hard that she would have crushed it if she even had a fraction of a vampire's strength. "No, I have to go save him. I –"

"Bonnie and I will get him. You two just lay low. I mean it," Stefan said. "You're safer together." Damon could tell how annoyed Stefan was when he said that, and it was so satisfying.

"But – !"

"We're already at the airport. Bonnie's getting the tickets, Elena. He'll be safe. She won't let anything happen to him."

"He'll be fine, Elena," Damon said, his voice low enough that the gesture was meant exclusively for her, despite knowing that his brother's supernatural hearing would still catch it. "He's in good hands."

The abject terror and helplessness on Elena's face stole any joy he felt at Stefan's frustration, and Damon reached over to gingerly take her hand. She met his gaze immediately, her dark gaze shimmering in the early dusk as she bravely kept her tears from spilling down her cheeks.

"Okay," she whispered softly, her own hand squeezing Damon's in return. "I – thank you." Her lips were parted as though she wanted to say more, her eyes darting helplessly between Damon's who juggled watching the road and comforting the woman next to him. "I – I trust you."

"Great," Stefan replied, distracted by Bonnie calling him over to their gate. "We'll be in touch."

When the call ended, and suddenly, any façade of levity their earlier banter provided was shattered with the blow of Stefan's news. The Originals were unlinked and all their proclivity toward fighting over who gets to be the most dramatic person in any room seems to have put Damon and Elena at the center.

"Where will we go?" Elena asked, both hands now wrapped around his.

"I have a few ideas," Damon said, reaching his thumb to stroke her knuckles to soothe her. "But we'll have to lose our tails first."

She nodded mutely, somehow straddling a look both worried and resolved. It pulled at a part of him he'd long ago resigned to her, laughing at the once-naïve fool who genuinely believed he could keep his humanity locked up in her presence. Needing to see her smile again, to see hope return to her gaze, with the same urgency that he somehow still needed air despite being undead, he resorted to a tried-and-true method – one that seemed to work on her quite well.

"Aw, what's the matter, Pouty?" He teased, leaning over to softly purr in her ear. "Afraid you'll lose your hustler cred if blood your contraband isn't enough for an extended trip?"

"Eyes on the road!" She straightened, probably making some feeble attempt to hide her racing heartbeat, dilated pupils, and oh yeah, that tantalizing scent. Definitely worked. "Actually, get out of the driver's seat. I'm fine now." She declared, arms crossed over her chest to emphasize her point.

"Nope! First lesson in dashing rogue lore," Damon said importantly. "Creating false trails for annoying supernatural clingers."

"Hmm." Elena frowned theatrically, tapping her chin. "Does that come before or after swimming in enough bourbon to power a pirate ship?"

He grinned. There she is. "Obviously, you need both, Elena. You're lucky I offered to teach you, because you clearly have a lot to learn."

#fandom free bingo #delena #damon salvatore #elena gilbert #ao3 fanfic #damon x elena #tvd fanfiction #delena fanfic #banter #mutual pining #idiots in love #banter is a love language

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