To his credit, he waited a whole two weeks before bugging her.

“Doesn’t it seem a little weird to you?”

She sighed. “I have a chem test, Damon.”

“Why Mystic Falls? Why some little town in Virginia? New York, sure, Los Angeles...yes, actually. But why would vampires come to some middle of nowhere town?”

“I don’t know, because LA wasn’t a thing in the 1860s?”

“Astute, but wrong. Well, right, but still wrong. There has to be a reason.”

“Does there?” Elena tried not to show how much he was annoying her. He’d go away faster if he didn’t know she was seriously doubting her ability to pass chem.

“Obviously.”

And then he just waited. And waited, and waited. When she’d failed at balancing the same equation three times, he said, “You know, you’re doing that wrong.”

She didn’t throw her pencil down, but it was a near thing. "And I'm going to keep working at it until I do it right. So lay off, okay?"

"Touchy, touchy. Fine." He turned to leave. "I'll just go investigate the mysteries of the Lockwood manor on my own, then."

Damon was going to end up screwing her up, and it wouldn't even really be his fault. He was the one who pushed her boundaries, of course; he was the one constantly trying to get her to bend and break. But in the end, she was always the one to give in.

This time, she sighed, put down her pencil, and said, "Give me ten minutes to get ready."

"Goody," Damon said, and plopped down on her bed like he thought he belonged there.

||

She hadn't forgiven him. She couldn't: he'd killed Jeremy. There was nothing he could do that would make her like him less.

But it was a really, really nice day, with fall just barely moving in and the sun high in the sky, and Damon was poking through the ruins and making cracks about Ty. She didn't answer favorably, didn't even really look at him, but she still felt like she was betraying Jeremy a little.

She felt miles worse when Stefan said, "Damon knows where the entrance to the cellar is. He's playing around."

He was leaning against a tree about twenty feet away. Elena walked over to him, waiting to answer until she could take his hand. "I would have found it eventually."

Stefan smiled. "I know."

"Touching," Damon said. His sarcasm cut straight through the moment.

Elena sighed and turned to him. "Go in the cellar on your own. I have to go study."

"There's a barrier," Damon said. "Do you think I had you out here for your pretty face? I need Stefan's help, and I knew the best way to get him here was by using you."

He meant that to be hurtful, she reminded herself, and didn't respond.

"And you think admitting that will make me help you?"

"Well, no. But it's so nice to disappoint her again, don't you think?"

"This is getting old, Damon."

"Fine." He turned to look at her. "Unlike some teen heartthrob couples, who for now shall remain unnamed, I have a vested interest in this town not getting vampire fever, which means I need to get into that cellar. Stefan is going to help me. You can go away."

"What makes you think I'll help you?" Stefan said.

Damon smiled blandly. "Because you like seeing me all fired up to do good and not killing any more of the good citizens of Mystic Falls."

"Is that a threat?"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down."

But Elena was mad. No, beyond mad, because this was ridiculous even for her new life's standards. "Stefan, just help him out so he'll leave us alone. I'm done playing his games."

She expected Damon to say something snide, but he just looked at her weirdly and jerked his thumb behind him. "Cellar's this way."

Elena followed, just because she trusted Damon about as far as she could throw her bathtub. But he was quiet as he led them down a rickety old set of stairs.

She didn't know what she was expecting, exactly, but a massive, ornate metal door wasn't it. "Wow."

"Hence the needing help," Damon said. "So come on, let's pull."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Stefan laid a hand flat against the door. "Don't you feel that?"

"Let me think - no. Because there's nothing to feel." Damon gripped the hinges. "Let's just get this over with, shall we? Then the two of you can go back to having your boring, vanilla sex somewhere I can't hear it."

Elena was sort of disturbed that she wasn't sure if he sounded disappointed about that or not. "There's nothing I can do to help, is there."

"Unless you suddenly gained vampire strength, no."

Stefan sighed. "You owe me," he told Damon, and grabbed the other side of the door. They both started pulling.

And, okay, it was one thing to know that they both had superstrength, and to feel it occasionally. It was another thing to watch them pull so hard they snapped huge tree roots - and to see the door still stay shut.

"If I have to get the witch's help, I'm going to be annoyed." Damon gritted his teeth and started pulling harder.

Elena was the only one with her eyes open when a hole formed in the middle of the door. "Stefan!" she yelled. "Get back, both of you, it's - "

And everything went dark.

||

When she woke up, it was pitch black and she was lying on someone. The guy had a lot of muscles and...was combing his fingers through her hair. "Urgh," she said, yanking herself away from Damon's hands. "Molesting me while I'm unconscious is not okay, Damon."

"Oh, good, you're alive." Damon sounded like he didn't even care - almost. His voice was too tense to pull it off. "Stefan, she's alive."

"I could hear her heartbeat," Stefan said. Elena jumped: he was maybe three inches away from her. He reached out to her and pulled her back against him. "Hey."

"This sucks," Elena said, turning so that she could kiss him. It was weird and fumbly, but also so comforting that when they pulled apart, she sighed and relaxed a little.

"I could hear her heartbeat too," Damon said loudly, "but that doesn't mean she didn't have some kind of brain damage. In fact, she still might have some kind of brain damage, because only a seriously, extremely compromised person would think making out while trapped in some kind of magic cave is a good idea."

Elena had to fight the urge to reach out and poke him. He might sound crazy, but he wasn't Jeremy, and it wasn't her job to comfort him. "It was a kiss, not making out. Calm down."

"Magic. Cave. With a limited supply of air."

"You don't have to breathe. Cut it out."

"Your lack of self-preservation is really something you should see a doctor about."

"Not your best comeback," Elena said, and very determinedly did not hit him. They couldn't afford to fight like this. "We need to figure out a way out of here."

"No, really? Brilliant deduction, Watson."

"Damon," Stefan said.

It didn't make any sense that Damon would listen. When was the last time he'd done what Stefan wanted? But Elena could practically feel the tension in the room relax.

"Well," Damon said after a few minutes, "how do we want to spend the time? Touch charades?"

"What is that, even? Never mind, I don't want to know."

"You really don't," Stefan said. "We need to explore. Get our bearings."

"Because there's so much to explore down here. In fact, I'm sure that any moment, Mason Lockwood will show up to let us out! Or maybe we'll find a secret passageway. Your idea really has merit, Stefan."

"Get your hand off my ankle," Elena said.

"You're no fun." But Damon moved his hand away. Elena ignored the vague feeling of disappointment. Things were beyond weird enough right now.

"Eventually we really will run out of air," Elena said. "We need to figure out a way out of here. Even if it's digging out."

"I didn't peg you to be the type with a prison escape plan. Kinky."

"Cut it out, Damon," Elena said. "Stefan, how much do you know about the Lockwoods?"

"Not enough, apparently."

"There has to be some kind of failsafe. Some way for them to get out if one of them got trapped here accidentally."

"You might be giving the dogs too much credit," Damon said.

"They're one of the founding families. Can you think of anyone more paranoid?"

"The KGB."

Elena didn't think that really warranted a response. Stefan was the one who said, "Someone in this country, Damon. Come on. Help us look."

"Pushy, pushy." But Damon was the first one who got up and started shuffling around. Elena let Stefan pull her up, but she didn't stick close to him, moving instead away from the noises Damon was making. She didn't think night vision would help them much in here. There wasn't any light for it.

It was really lucky that she wasn't claustrophobic. Of course, it was really lucky that she wasn't a lot of things.

A few minutes later, they hadn't found a single thing that would help them get out and Damon was extolling the virtues of turning Elena into a vampire. Which just made things awkward, because it wasn't a subject she and Stefan really discussed.

"And it wouldn't solve any problems anyway," she said when Damon kept pressing the point. "Since there are no humans for me to kill."

"I don't see why you have to ruin my fantasies with logic," Damon said from an inch behind her.

She refused to jump. "Damon. Sit down somewhere or something."

Since she wasn't Stefan, she wasn't expecting him to actually do it. Was he afraid of dark, small spaces? It would explain how weird he was acting, at least. She tried not to let it get to her, but it really did make her tired. She didn't want weird; she wanted normal. Or, okay, not normal, but calm, just for a day or two. It was kind of sad that she knew she was asking for way, way too much.

When enough time had passed that Elena was feeling itchy and irritated, she sat down on the far end (she was pretty sure) of the hole. "I guess we have to wait to be rescued."

"It'll happen," Stefan said, taking her hand.

"Or one of us will go crazy with bloodlust and kill you, and then you won't care anymore," Damon said cheerfully.

It was a completely useless thing to do, but Elena closed her eyes anyway. Maybe she could fall asleep, and when she woke up, they'd be rescued.

Right, sure. She thumped her head against the dirt in frustration.

The door swung silently open. It was a cloudy day, but the sudden light still made her wince.

"Well, that was anti-climactic," Damon said, and blurred out of the hole. "I'll leave you two to have 'yay, we're not dead' sex. Try to make it at least a little rough. You're both constant disappointments on that front." He ambled away, whistling.

"God," Elena said. "Why do we do anything he asks? Ever, at all?"

"I've been asking myself that for a long time, believe me," Stefan said.

She thought about all the times he'd watched Damon kill people, both the ones he'd told her about and the ones that were only implied. Yeah, okay. Obviously it was a thing of Damon's, making people care about him more than they should. "I guess," she said, and stood up, still holding his hand. "We can totally have that sex, though."

"Oh, definitely," Stefan said. The second they were clear of the hole, he pulled her to him and kissed her hard. She pushed back and they ended up back against a tree, with him lifting her and sliding into her, so easily that it was hard to believe they'd been doing this for less than a year. She didn't know if Damon was listening when she came, and she told herself she didn't care.

So that was the first time. The problem was, it wasn't the last.