More shaken than ever.
Her eyelids sank. "Is this about Matt?"
"No."
"Is it about Shinichi?"
"No!"
Aha.
"It is, isn't it? You're afraid that Shinichi will get past all your defenses and possess you again. Aren't you?"
"Go to bed, Elena," Damon said tonelessly.
He was still shutting her out as completely as if she weren't there. Elena got mad.
"What does it take to show you that I trust you? I'm traveling all alone with you, without any idea where we're really going. I'm trusting you with Stefan's life." Elena was behind Damon now, on the beige carpet which smelled like...nothing, like boiled water. Not even like dust.
Her words were the dust. There was something about them that sounded hollow, wrong. They were the truth - but they weren't getting through to Damon....
Elena sighed. Touching Damon unexpectedly was always a tricky business, with all the risks of setting off murderous instinct by accident, even when he wasn't possessed. She reached out, now, very carefully, to put her fingertips on the elbow of his leather jacket. She spoke as precisely and unemotionally as she could.
"You also know that I have other senses now than the usual five. How many times do I have to say it, Damon? I know it wasn't you torturing me and Matt last week." Despite herself, Elena heard a certain pleading in her own voice. "I know that you've protected me on this trip when I was in danger, even killing for me. That means - a lot to me. You may say you don't believe in the human sentiment of forgiveness, but I don't think you've forgotten it. And when you know that there is nothing to forgive in the first place - "
"This has absolutely nothing to do with last week!"
The change in his voice - the force in it - hit Elena like a whiplash. It hurt...and it frightened her. Damon was serious. He was also under some dreadful strain, not completely unlike that of fighting off Shinichi's possession, but different.
"Damon..."
"Leave me alone!"
Now, where have I heard something like that before? Befuddled, her heart pounding, Elena groped through memories.
Oh, yes. Stefan. Stefan when they had first been in his room together, when he was afraid to love her. When he was sure he would cause her to be damned if he showed he cared.
Could Damon be that much like the brother he always mocked?
"At least turn around and talk with me face-to-face."
"Elena." It was a whisper, but it sounded as if Damon couldn't summon up his usual silky menace. "Go to bed. Go to hell. Go anywhere, but stay away from me."
"You're so good at that, aren't you?" Elena's own voice was cold now. Recklessly, angrily, she moved in even closer. "At pushing people away. But I know that you haven't fed this evening. There's nothing else you want from me, and you can't do the starving-martyr bit half as well as Stefan - "
Elena had spoken knowing that her words were guaranteed to incite a response of some kind, but Damon's usual response to this sort of thing was to lounge against something and pretend not to have heard.
What happened instead was completely outside the range of her experience.
Damon whirled, caught her precisely, held her locked in an unbreakable grip. Then, with a swoop of his head like a falcon on a mouse, he kissed her. He was more than strong enough to hold her still without hurting her.
The kiss was hard and long and for quite a while Elena resisted out of sheer instinct. Damon's body was cool against hers, which was still warm and damp from the bath. The way he was holding her - if she put enough pressure on those particular points, it would hurt her possibly seriously. And then - she knew - he would release her. But did she really know what she knew? Was she prepared to break a bone to test it?
He was stroking her hair, which was so unfair, curling the ends and crushing them in his fingers...just hours after he'd taught her to feel things to the tips of her hair. He knew her weak spots. Not just every woman's weak spots. He knew hers; he knew how to make her want to cry out in pleasure and how to soothe her.
There was nothing to do but test her theory and maybe break a bone. She would not submit when she had not invited him. She would not!
But then she remembered her curiosity about the little boy and the great stone boulder, and she deliberately opened her mind to Damon's. He fell into the trap of his own making.
As soon as their minds connected there were something like fireworks. Explosions. Rockets. Stars going nova. Elena set her mind to ignoring her body and began looking for the boulder.
It was deep, deep inside the most locked-off part of his brain. Deep in the eternal darkness that slept there. But Elena seemed to have brought a searchlight with her. Wherever she turned, dark festoons of cobwebs fell and heavy-looking stone arches crumbled and fell to the ground.
"Don't worry," Elena found herself saying. "The light won't do that to you! You don't have to live down here. I'll show you the beauty of the light."
What am I saying? Elena wondered even as the words left her lips. How can I promise him - and maybe he likes living here in the dark!
But in the next second she had come much closer to the little boy, close enough to see his pale, wondering face.
"You came again," he said, as if it were a miracle. "You said you would come, and you did!"
That brought down all Elena's barriers at once. She knelt, and pulling the chains to their utmost length, took him on her lap. "Are you glad that I came back?" she asked gently. She was already stroking his hair smooth.
"Oh, yes!" It was a cry, and it frightened Elena almost as much as it pleased her. "You're the nicest person I've ever - the most beautiful thing I ever - "