You Are The Space in My Bed (Damon/Elena) (original) (raw)

Title: You Are The Space in My Bed
Rating: PG-13 (mentions of canon sex)
For: The I want YOU comment!ficathon; Damon and Elena sleep in the same bed, prompted by fluffyfrolicker
Wordcount: 1100
Spoilers: 4x09
Summary: Damon's always been trying to get into her bed. It's quite literal, actually, because Damon being in her bed always was absurdly non-sexual. She learned to associate it with dumb jokes, with waving teddy bears or waking her at 6am.
A/N: This literally just wrote itself over one morning.

You Are The Space in My Bed

You are the hole in my head You are the space in my bed You are the silence in between what I thought And what I said

Florence + The Machine, No Light, No Light

Damon's always been trying to get into her bed.

It's quite literal, actually, because Damon being in her bed always was absurdly non-sexual. She learned to associate it with dumb jokes, with waving teddy bears or waking her at 6am.

“You could've just called,” she ranted as she was packing her bag to go to Chicago with him.

“Yeah, where would be the fun in it?”

“You think you're hilarious, don't you?”

“You know I am.”

So the first time she slept with him in one bed, she could totally brush it off as yet another of his pranks. To her defense, it probably started out as one; Damon'd fully expected her to yell at him and kick him out. But then she didn't yell, and he didn't leave, and they never mentioned it again. There was nothing to mention, really. He slept on top of her covers, and even if Elena actually did wake up in the middle of the night spooning him, her forehead pressed against his spine and her arm wrapped around his waist, Damon slept through all of it, so it's like it never happened.

Water under the bridge.

***

The first time she slept with him, she didn't expect to actually sleep. She'd had some vague demonic sex fiend mental image in her head, and subconsciously expected that dawn would surprise them somewhere in the middle of round eleven. But then she was rolling off him, gasping and shaking after two embarrassingly short rounds, because, apparently, she'd severely overestimated her own vampire stamina.

Somewhere in the back of her head she registered Damon was laughing, and she was just about to feel self-conscious about it, but then she remembered that this was the guy who'd whimpered when she'd taken him into her mouth less than an hour earlier, so she simply let him wrap his arms around her.

“How long's it been?” he asked knowingly.

Soon she was practically lying on top of him again, resting comfortably on his chest. Damon's body felt calm beneath her, warm and surprisingly soft. Elena was used to him being tense, restless and buzzing with energy, but now, in the afterglow, he was just as boneless as she was, sprawled on the mattress like a huge, lazy cat.

“Longer then you ever went without sex,” she muttered grumpily against his breastbone.

She could feel a chuckle vibrate in Damon's chest, and she honestly meant to ask what was so funny, but she fell asleep before she could open her mouth.

***

When she stayed in his bed after they found out about the sire bond, she was trying to make a point.

She wasn't sure what exactly she was trying to prove, but whatever it was, she made her statement. She must've, because she barely slept at all, painfully conscious of Damon's body mere inches away from hers. She was angry enough to want to fuck him senseless, tired enough to not want to have sex ever again, confused enough to just want to reach out to check if he was still there and scared enough to not actually do any of the above.

Elena knew Damon didn't sleep a wink. He was terrible at pretending to be asleep, way too tense and restless, but she let him have it, played along so that they both didn't have to speak. She even waited for him to force himself to breathe slowly before she took his hand in hers. She didn't quite dare to lace her fingers with his, but she squeezed his wrist so hard it must've hurt.

Now, that wasn't funny at all.

***

Elena remembers all those nights as she's standing at Damon's bedroom door yet again.

She knows he knows she's here. Damon's not an idiot, he can recognize her steps, especially after she spent quite a few nights over the last month pathetically pacing around the lakehouse. She's grateful he always pretended not to notice, made some random and vaguely awkward comments to Jeremy about his progress for Elena to hear. She never planned to bother him.

But then, since when do things between them go according to plan?

“You shouldn't be here,” says Damon as he opens the door, but Elena walks right past him and sits on his bed.

He has his sexual predator spiel on in a blink, stands between Elena's legs and leans over her.

“You need to leave,” he says with his eyes wide open, and she has to suppress the urge to ruffle his hair just to see a stupid expression on his face.

“Can we please skip the part where you pretend you don't trust yourself around me and you can't keep your hands off me?” she asks instead.

She doesn't wait for a reply and doesn't offer any further explanation. She simply gets up, opens the closet, takes out Jenna's old sweats and changes quickly. Only now, in the silence of the lakehouse, her head is pounding from the noise that surrounds her almost all the time when she's in Mystic Falls. Elena loves her friends, she really does, but if Damon, too, starts making a fuss, she's ready to scream.

“Look, I get it,” she says. “No need to explain it all again. I understand. I'll be gone by morning. But please, don't kick me out now.”

Damon gives her a slow nod and starts rearranging the pillows nervously. He must've been lying down reading when she came, there's even a book on the floor.

The bed is small, much smaller than his bed in the Boarding House, so Elena ends up practically crawling on top of Damon in order to fit in. Last time they were so close, she had his blood under her fingernails, and he was hiding his face in the crook of her neck, panting so heavily she wanted to laugh.

Funny, how long ago it seems.

“We did this once before I turned, remember?” she says, hoping to make him relax at least a little bit. It's not exactly true, of course, and they both know it, but it's close enough for Damon to start stroking her hair and put his other arm around her waist.

“You were all over me when I woke up,” he teases.

“Yeah, well, I had to restrain you somehow. You kicked me!”

This time she does get a laugh out of him, presses her cheek to his chest to feel it against her skin. There's no need to talk, really, but they do it anyway, exchange gossip and complain about boredom. Tomorrow there will be plenty of time to come back to thinking about exactly how screwed they are, but now Elena closes her eyes and focuses on how warm she feels, surrounded by blankets and Damon's arms.

She dozes off before she has time to think exactly how forbidden this is.