Damon hadn't meant to do it, but exactly what kind of excuse was that? 'I'm sorry, but I lost it for a second there and I snapped your brother's neck' wouldn't really fly with Elena - or 99.9% of the female population... at least, not if they were wearing vervane. Which she was. Not that he could bring himself to compel her now anyways. Maybe months ago he could've, when he first arrived and she was just his brother's Achilles heel, a way to make those bloodless veins stand out in Stefan's neck. Things were more complicated now.

Sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the flames flicker and leap, he tried not to think about the look on Elena's face when he left her there with her brother's body. He didn't like this feeling, this ache in his gut, this unbearable remorse. He had escaped those bonds when he had turned, and he was free, and now he was choosing to feel this. Choosing to be more man than beast. It was a bad idea, and Damon knew when he thought something was a bad idea, then it was usually a very, very bad idea.

His thoughts were swirling about all disjointed and raving, putting him a near trance until he heard a knock on the door. Sighing, he put down his glass of scotch and got up to answer it. Steeling himself with his age old smirk and air of indifference he swung the door open only to be greeted by the slim girl who was causing him such pathetic - really, almost laughable - angst.

"Elena. What're you doing here?" he asked.

"It's Tuesday," she replied with a raised eyebrow.

"It's also 2010, but that doesn't really answer the question," he said with an eyeroll.

"School. Stefan, your brother, is a student. We're dating, therefore, we arrive to school together."

"Oh right, I almost forgot you two were joined at the hip," Damon replied, clenching a fist. He casually tilted his head to the side and leaned an arm against the door frame. "What do you think Katherine would make of it?"

"I'm sure she'd be unhappy, but she doesn't really strike me as the sunshine and gumdrops type either way. I'm sure just knowing I was with Stefan would be more than enough to invoke her wrath. And why am I talking to you?"

"Because I'm in your way and you want to get inside. Also, probably partly because of my wit and charm."

"Gag me."

"That's forward," he replied with a smirk.

"Gross," she said shoving him out of her way. "And grosser. You smell like a brewery."

"Yeah, well..." Damon started to reply but when he turned around, she was already half way up the stairs, on her way to his brother - who no doubt smelled of musk of Cullen, or something equally appealing to women.

Sitting back in his chair, he tried not to listen to their muffled laughter and too obvious heavy silence. When they came back down the stairs, he didn't turn - Damon didn't need any images of Elena with mussed hair and crooked clothes in his mind with all the other thoughts in there already. She said nothing to him, but he heard his brother's brief promise to return later in the night taking with him the life he had learned he wanted much too late.

He didn't know how to make it right, or if he should even try. Eventually, he knew, he was likely to snap again. He wasn't the good guy – he had known that all along. Just like he knew he was never the brother who got the girl in the end. So why try? But still, Elena had a pull over him, gravitational, unexplainable. As if she, herself, were the one compelling him. And from where he was sitting, that would be the easier reality to swallow.

As Damon rested his chin in his hand, leaning forward, it was only then that he realized that he did, in fact, smell like a brewery.