![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waltzmatildahTitle: Inspire In Me The Desire In Me (To Never Go Home)
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairing: Elena, Elena/Damon
Word Count: 1050
Rating: PG
Prompt: From![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bluesuzanne at softly_me's TVD Ficathon. Hey, hey, just one more and I'll walk away. All the everything you win turns to nothing today. And I forget how to move when my mouth is this dry, and my eyes are bursting hearts in a blood-stained sky. Oh it was sweet, it was wild, and oh how we...
Author's Note: This prompt, and the song it was taken from, are stunning and I only hope I've managed to do them both some semblance of justice... (Prompt lyrics, title and cut text from "Homesick", The Cure.)
In the shell-shocked aftermath of Rose's demise a shift of sorts realigns them into something unfamiliar. Patterns of mono-chromed ink that paint pictures of how things will never be.
No matter how much they may want for them to.
He blames himself. It is a deserved recrimination after all and no one will deny him that.
He disappears for hours on end. And a layer of dry ice develops in her veins as Stefan watches him surreptitiously through squinted lids. Like he can see things that she can't.
Like he knows things that she never could.
*
He sits at the mouth of the tomb. She finds him there on occasion. Pretends she's just passing by and he doesn't bother to dispute the obvious lie. She hangs back. Lets the shadows envelope her in their mottled dark. She doesn't see him go any further than three steps to down.
Would give anything to be privy to his thoughts.
Over one hundred and sixty years and some things will never change. Death and betrayal being two of the very most important...
The significance of this location is not lost on her.
*
He takes to sleeping on her porch again. She catches sight of him through drapes pulled askew. He doesn't announce his presence, nor does he provide her a reason as to why.
Though she thinks she could probably count them all off. One by one by one...
If she were to be honest with herself.
Instead, she allows him his private penance. One thousand Hail Marys asked and delivered.
*
Nights become weeks become slow turning calendar pages. Winter arrives, wreaks vengeance with a ferocity she struggles to recall. Snow drifts muffle footsteps that come every so often, but mostly go, and the cold air builds a wall of ice between her and everything that used to be.
Fingers frozen, locked in place. A drifting of sorts...
He leaves town after that. Goes in search of the memories that he wears draped around his neck. A crown of thorns, slipped and slipping. She watches his retreat with baited breath and counts down the ticking minutes 'til she can slip quietly into the night behind him.
His shadow.
*
There is something about his unravelling that she can't tear her gaze from. A silent form of disrepair that she doubts her hands will ever be strong enough to piece back together.
Isn't entirely convinced that she wants them to.
She follows at a distance. Uses the remnants of himself that he loses along the way as her unwavering guide.
Catches up with him somewhere between the before that they're denying and the after that they're so desperately hiding from. A safe middle ground where none of anything else seems to matter all that much...
Her fingernails scratch at the door of a motel room he's calling home for the night. Chalkboard raw. It cracks open with a shriek.
A warning perhaps.
A warning that she fails to heed.
*
His dark is filled with nightmares that he refuses to acknowledge.
But so is hers and she is not one to judge.
Not this time.
Cheap hotel linen pools between their ankles. Summer comes, brings with it a searing kind of tension that coats their skin, salt water slick.
In-boxes fill. Remain resolutely un-emptied. And it would seem that the world refuses to turn without them in it.
The validation in that knowledge is as surprising as it is bitter on her tongue.
She erases the taste with his lips.
*
He forgets to run for a moment. And she forgets to remind him.
They still to stalled in the New Mexico desert. Cars parked shoulder to shoulder, a united show of solidarity that is lost on neither of them.
Two hundred and eighty seven days have passed. A line scratched into her visor for each and every one as the motels change their names but not their décor and Albuquerque becomes Phoenix becomes somewhere just outside The Strip.
And it all starts to sound the same in the end.
If that is what this is.
The end.
*
But then he's gone before she wakes. Dust motes tumble one over the other through the streak of sunlight that criss crosses the empty half of the bed they had shared.
A note propped on the pillow that she doesn't bother to read. Red ink that she thinks looks a little too much like blood, maybe even her blood for it feels like she might be missing some. She tucks the slip of paper into her purse for later.
To throw in his face at the back of the next town over.
An enraged fuck you, too that she won't need consonants and vowels to articulate.
*
It's three nights and fours days before she can bring herself to catch him up. Shadows elongate across sharp features that crease in confusion at her dogged determination.
His implied why is received. Loud and static free.
He keeps his hands out front and centre. Refuses to open the door this time. Whether for her preservation or his she can no longer tell...
They were never the same thing, after all.
*
She slides her car into the gravel at the shoulder of dusty road in a city that could be Twin Falls but probably isn't.
Elbows her way into a phone-booth and drops coins into the ether. Dials Caroline's cell from memory. Slides to seated down the shattering glass as an automated message spells out instructions for her to leave a message after the tone...
But she has no message to leave. The handset drops, dangles freely between her knees.
A face, pressed to the fingerprint streaked glass, raises eyebrows in a manner that is wholly familiar.
Something in her chest bursts and the pieces that had shifted all those weeks and months ago drop resolutely back into place.
*
He threads fingers through hers. A tight knit weave. Hauls her to her feet.
And she can't for the life of her imagine what letting go might feel like as the black of the night meets the black of the highway ahead.
Split only by headlights that fail to point in a direction that might one day lead them home.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairing: Elena, Elena/Damon
Word Count: 1050
Rating: PG
Prompt: From
bluesuzanne at softly_me's TVD Ficathon. Hey, hey, just one more and I'll walk away. All the everything you win turns to nothing today. And I forget how to move when my mouth is this dry, and my eyes are bursting hearts in a blood-stained sky. Oh it was sweet, it was wild, and oh how we... Author's Note: This prompt, and the song it was taken from, are stunning and I only hope I've managed to do them both some semblance of justice... (Prompt lyrics, title and cut text from "Homesick", The Cure.)
In the shell-shocked aftermath of Rose's demise a shift of sorts realigns them into something unfamiliar. Patterns of mono-chromed ink that paint pictures of how things will never be.
No matter how much they may want for them to.
He blames himself. It is a deserved recrimination after all and no one will deny him that.
He disappears for hours on end. And a layer of dry ice develops in her veins as Stefan watches him surreptitiously through squinted lids. Like he can see things that she can't.
Like he knows things that she never could.
*
He sits at the mouth of the tomb. She finds him there on occasion. Pretends she's just passing by and he doesn't bother to dispute the obvious lie. She hangs back. Lets the shadows envelope her in their mottled dark. She doesn't see him go any further than three steps to down.
Would give anything to be privy to his thoughts.
Over one hundred and sixty years and some things will never change. Death and betrayal being two of the very most important...
The significance of this location is not lost on her.
*
He takes to sleeping on her porch again. She catches sight of him through drapes pulled askew. He doesn't announce his presence, nor does he provide her a reason as to why.
Though she thinks she could probably count them all off. One by one by one...
If she were to be honest with herself.
Instead, she allows him his private penance. One thousand Hail Marys asked and delivered.
*
Nights become weeks become slow turning calendar pages. Winter arrives, wreaks vengeance with a ferocity she struggles to recall. Snow drifts muffle footsteps that come every so often, but mostly go, and the cold air builds a wall of ice between her and everything that used to be.
Fingers frozen, locked in place. A drifting of sorts...
He leaves town after that. Goes in search of the memories that he wears draped around his neck. A crown of thorns, slipped and slipping. She watches his retreat with baited breath and counts down the ticking minutes 'til she can slip quietly into the night behind him.
His shadow.
*
There is something about his unravelling that she can't tear her gaze from. A silent form of disrepair that she doubts her hands will ever be strong enough to piece back together.
Isn't entirely convinced that she wants them to.
She follows at a distance. Uses the remnants of himself that he loses along the way as her unwavering guide.
Catches up with him somewhere between the before that they're denying and the after that they're so desperately hiding from. A safe middle ground where none of anything else seems to matter all that much...
Her fingernails scratch at the door of a motel room he's calling home for the night. Chalkboard raw. It cracks open with a shriek.
A warning perhaps.
A warning that she fails to heed.
*
His dark is filled with nightmares that he refuses to acknowledge.
But so is hers and she is not one to judge.
Not this time.
Cheap hotel linen pools between their ankles. Summer comes, brings with it a searing kind of tension that coats their skin, salt water slick.
In-boxes fill. Remain resolutely un-emptied. And it would seem that the world refuses to turn without them in it.
The validation in that knowledge is as surprising as it is bitter on her tongue.
She erases the taste with his lips.
*
He forgets to run for a moment. And she forgets to remind him.
They still to stalled in the New Mexico desert. Cars parked shoulder to shoulder, a united show of solidarity that is lost on neither of them.
Two hundred and eighty seven days have passed. A line scratched into her visor for each and every one as the motels change their names but not their décor and Albuquerque becomes Phoenix becomes somewhere just outside The Strip.
And it all starts to sound the same in the end.
If that is what this is.
The end.
*
But then he's gone before she wakes. Dust motes tumble one over the other through the streak of sunlight that criss crosses the empty half of the bed they had shared.
A note propped on the pillow that she doesn't bother to read. Red ink that she thinks looks a little too much like blood, maybe even her blood for it feels like she might be missing some. She tucks the slip of paper into her purse for later.
To throw in his face at the back of the next town over.
An enraged fuck you, too that she won't need consonants and vowels to articulate.
*
It's three nights and fours days before she can bring herself to catch him up. Shadows elongate across sharp features that crease in confusion at her dogged determination.
His implied why is received. Loud and static free.
He keeps his hands out front and centre. Refuses to open the door this time. Whether for her preservation or his she can no longer tell...
They were never the same thing, after all.
*
She slides her car into the gravel at the shoulder of dusty road in a city that could be Twin Falls but probably isn't.
Elbows her way into a phone-booth and drops coins into the ether. Dials Caroline's cell from memory. Slides to seated down the shattering glass as an automated message spells out instructions for her to leave a message after the tone...
But she has no message to leave. The handset drops, dangles freely between her knees.
A face, pressed to the fingerprint streaked glass, raises eyebrows in a manner that is wholly familiar.
Something in her chest bursts and the pieces that had shifted all those weeks and months ago drop resolutely back into place.
*
He threads fingers through hers. A tight knit weave. Hauls her to her feet.
And she can't for the life of her imagine what letting go might feel like as the black of the night meets the black of the highway ahead.
Split only by headlights that fail to point in a direction that might one day lead them home.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 10:54 am (UTC)LIKE REALLY.
SO GOOD.
SO, SO, SO, SO, FUCKING GOOD. ARRRRGGGGGGHHH.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 12:36 pm (UTC)DOPPELGANGER, AHOY!
And yes. I do believe so!
I love the idea of them wandering aimlessly from shitty hoetl room to the next searching for nothing because there is (to me) something hopeless about the midguided notion that there is a point to it all. Like they'll come to the end of it with a flash of blinding light and everything will fall into place... when, in reality, it's just a giant circle they're destined to loop for eternity (in Damon's case).
And I find shared hopelessness romantic in a really big, screwed up kind of way...
What? I know. My brains. They be dark and depressing!! I wouldn't have it any other way!
SO GLAD YOU LIKED!!!
And really? If I'm you? Well, let's just say there are worse things I could be!!
(*cough* because I may or may not think you're pretty freaking awesome *cough*)
You know... that.
Anyway... moving right along. ANSWER SOME PROMPTS, WOMAN! Like... actually do it. I will absolve you of all fics that you owe to like... everyone, if you answer some damn prompts!
Yes. I am that powerful.
(well, actually... I take back the absolving of the Mer/Alex fic... you still have to do that one!)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 12:46 pm (UTC)And really? If I'm you? Well, let's just say there are worse things I could be!!
Haha, ditto! :)
I AM TRYING, I SWEAR. I HAVE 110 WORDS OF WHAT I'M CONVINCED IS CRAP. AND THE PROMPTS AREN'T ~SPEAKING TO ME YET D:
(But if it absolves me of everything but Mer/Alex - for which I should never be absolved, quite fair - I WILL TRY HARDER.)
Edit because it is obviously the night for not closing html tags lolol.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 12:50 pm (UTC)Really, this is just more proof to add to the ever growing pile...
Also... I GOT MY CHRISTMAS CARD TODAYYYYYYYYY!!!! HEEE! Thank you! Now my family don't think I'm a loser with no friends!! YOU ARE THE BEST!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 12:53 pm (UTC)Heee you're welcome!!! :DD AND I MEANT TO THANK YOU FOR MINE LAST WEEK!! It is sitting on the
TV cabinet acting as a mantel piece as I have no decent furnituremantel piece ♥no subject
Date: 2010-12-22 01:03 pm (UTC)TV cabinet acting as a mantle piece because I have no decent furnituremantle pieceSounds like pride of place to me!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-23 05:58 am (UTC)btw, I hope you don't mind that I added you?? I'm in desperate need of more TVD loving people in my life and I adore your writing <3
no subject
Date: 2010-12-23 06:50 am (UTC)I really do have a 'thing' for aimlessness and loss! I just can't help myself, haha!!
So glad you liked this and I definitely don't mind that you added me!! We can be a mutual appreciation society because I love your writing, too, and I'ma go add you right back!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 05:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-24 12:03 pm (UTC)I know it's not everyones cup of tea (what with the incomplete sentences and the HEAVY imagery, coupled with the distinct lack of dialogue!)... but I enjoy reading fic like this and I definitely enjoy writing it, so I'm super glad that you do too!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-25 05:49 am (UTC)Merry x-mas to you as well!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 09:30 pm (UTC)*is back to her TVD rewatch*
no subject
Date: 2010-12-28 11:43 pm (UTC)But feel free to rinse and repeat as often as you like!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-31 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-07 03:30 am (UTC)"The significance of this location is not lost on her."
I loved that, just 'cause I was all "SYMBOLIC SYMBOLIC SYMBOLIC!" when I was watching ahaha, and I love when people mention that 'cause it really is, just heartbreakingly so.
And Elena and Damon wandering from motel to motel, and the scratches on her visor and him leaving and his and her preservation not being the same, so much love for this.
"An enraged fuck you, too that she won't need consonants and vowels to articulate."
That was pretty awesome too.
You're wonderful ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-01-07 03:46 am (UTC)Considering how I just flailed all over your journal with comments about how much I think you rock, I got a little nervous at the thought of you reading my stuff... so YAY! So MUCH yay! You like it! Phew!
My writing style is kinda unusual I think. I'm typically imagery/thought heavy, with very little dialogue (and a tendency to ignore grammar rules!) so it's not always everyone's cup of tea, but I'm very glad that you liked it!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-07 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-13 09:37 am (UTC)My main comments about this fic was that I never thought of the Damon/Elena endgame until I read this. I know I want them to get together and imagine all the ways that they could in a believable way and then that's it. This fic forced me to see one of the most credible and angsty ways they could get together and stay together. Sooo thanks a tonne for that.
Fave bits:
His implied why is received. Loud and static free.
He keeps his hands out front and centre. Refuses to open the door this time. Whether for her preservation or his she can no longer tell...
They were never the same thing, after all.
-- OMG YES, YES, YES!!! YOU!! THEM!! THIS!
He threads fingers through hers. A tight knit weave. Hauls her to her feet.
And she can't for the life of her imagine what letting go might feel like as the black of the night meets the black of the highway ahead.
-- I love this image. THIS.... I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF. *stepping away from the CAPSLOCK* Seriously though! The angsty angstness of it all is more than I can bear because I love it so much. I love the aimless point to it all. I love the idea that it would actually be Elena who'll have to fight to keep him. I love the idea that they would continue to exist in their own little angsty world until Elena's old then dies (never to be turned). I don't think that Damon would really stay with her and love her if she was turned. He loves her humanity combined with her doppelgangerness, methinks.
Wow. All these thinky thoughts have been generated by your awesomeness. I love you so very much for writing this and sharing it with us. Going in the memories fo sho! xxDulce
no subject
Date: 2011-01-13 09:49 am (UTC)I'm so pleased with some of the comments you've made because you've picked up on EXACTLY what I was hoping to convey...
I love the aimless point to it all.
and
Elena who'll have to fight to keep him.
ESPECIALLY THOSE THINGS! Because YES! That's what I was going for...
I also agree that I don't want Elena turned and that, if she were, some of Damon's attraction to her would diminish...
ANYWAY! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-07 10:41 pm (UTC)You, this, them, ah!
The angst! Oh the beautiful angst!
no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 02:13 am (UTC)'TIS MY DEFAULT SETTING!!! Thank you!