Brave (Damon Salvatore x OC)

Choices

In the basement of the boarding house Stefan is hallucinating from lack of blood.

Elena and Ember are standing at the the cellar door watching as he mumbles to himself.

"It's so hard to see him locked up like this." Elena says.

"You're the one who locked him up." Damon snarks from behind them and Ember shoots him a glare. The hardest thing the past week had been keeping Damon and Elena from killing each other while the girls we're helping Stefan dry out from the human blood.

"You helped." Elena snaps back at him.

"I couldn't have him running around chewing on people. While the town was looking for vampires, now, could I?" He asks.

"It had nothing to do with you actually caring about him?" Elena rolls her eyes.

"Caring about Stefan is your thing, not mine." He reminds her.

"Will you both stop it. I am sick of you constantly being at each other's throats." Ember snaps and they both hush but continue to glare at each other until Damon stomps off upstairs.

"How do you put up with him?" Elena asks in frustration.

"He's not like that with me." She points out.

"No." Elena agrees. "He makes you breakfast and carries you to bed and insists that you sleep in his room." Elena agrees.

Ember blushes slightly and Elena asks. "Do I need to be worried about that?" She asks and Ember gives her a blank look. "The sharing a bed with Damon thing? That first night when you fell asleep here in the floor he packed you to his room and that's where you have slept every night this week."

"Yes El. And that's what we have done, slept. During the day I've been helping you detox your vampire boyfriend from human blood and at night I have been sleeping." She agrees.

"With Damon! In his bed!" Elena pushes. "With every body else in the world he is legitimately horrible. So you can understand why I might worry."

Ember meets her eyes. "I have stopped questioning whatever this is between me and Damon." She admits. "But I know that he is still in love with Katherine. Nothing romantic is going to happen and Damon respects that." Elena gives her a doubtful look. "I'm not stupid El, I'm not looking to get my heart broken." She promises her twin.

"But you understand why I'm worried?" Elena asks. "I may think he's a first class jackass, but even I can admit he's hot. And the way he looks at you... that would be hard to resist." She shares her worries.

.............................

Damon is in the parlor looking at the object that Pearl gave him when Elena and Ember enter.

"Did you ever figure out what that is?" Elena asks while she folds clothes that she had washed and tucked them into her bag.

"Nope. Whatever it is, it doesn't work." He comments and when Ember curls up on the couch he hands her her mug of coffee he has made for her.

"Pearl didn't say anything else about it?" She asks as she sips the sweet caffeinated brew and holds her hand out to ask to look at it.

He drops it in her hand and slumps on to the couch next to her. "She thought she was stealing his vampire compass, but that was a pocket watch. That Johnathan Gilbert was a crazy scientist." He spares Elena a glance where she is clearly listening then turns back to Ember. "Have you spoken to your uncle lately?"

"I've been avoiding him, actually." She admits and glances at him. "That, and I've been here every night this week." She reminds him.

He does that slow smirk that gives her butterflies in her stomach and leans in towards her to ask. "So, you'll be here again tonight?"