What We Knew (Damon Salvatore x Reader)

Manarola

Her body woke with a start, eyes opening wide from her rest. Early summer breeze swept across her face and her arms, the smell of roses, chamomile, salt and seaweed filling her nose. Tired eyes focused first on a lamp lit dimly on a table before a window, but nothing before her looked familiar. Then she saw stone walls and similar flooring, a balcony on her right between two thin windows. Beyond the balcony was dark. Some might say threatening if not for the crashing waves that sounded somehow nearby. The view was of the night's sea, surely, but Y/N couldn't see that yet. Whether it be her drowsy eyes or the dead of night, only endless darkness stretched beyond her windows.

She moved to her back, catching the sight of two doors near her left, but quickly she looked back down. At herself.

The gold no longer hung on her body, heavy and stiffening. The bodysuit was still tight on her however, the peeling at her chest and ankles looking like her own skin. Though, on any of her exposed skin, there were no burn marks. No injuries resting to show the removal of that tiring garb. 

She sat in the bed, body still weak and weary. Her heart beat in her chest hard, she felt every flutter. There was a panic inside of her. How she got there. Where Elias had gone. Who else rested beyond the door of that room.

On her left, the table closest to her, she turned the knob of an old lamp. A bankers lamp, and a warm light snapped on. It was still dim, brightening slowly.

And she looked around at the room much smaller than the one in Elias' other residence. Prettier, at least. It held easier furniture and better decorations.

There were paintings on the walls, each of them crafted quite well. Of an oil base, they depicted a woman in each one. They all had dark brown hair and eyes to match. Their features resembled one another quite well, perhaps they were family. Whoever painted them, held quite a talent.

There were a few plants scattered about the room. One on the same table as the small lamp, one hanging next to the door across the room, and one of a low chest of drawers. The wood matched the bed frame Y/N rested on, a dark-oak with expensive quality. And, as her tired eyes studied the furniture a little longer, it seemed the chest of drawers carried almost too many things atop of it. And looking a little longer, she saw most of it rested quite out of place.

She lifted herself from the bed, weakly. Her bones already tired, muscles even more so. Last time she ate was that tear of bread fore the Gala.

But as she approached the low drawers, she looked at everything scattered on its surface.

A change of clothes sat atop rather than inside—a simple sweatsuit that could have been mistaken for one of hers at home—a rectangular box that read 'FX Removal' and 'Spirit Gum and Liquid Latex' in a bold print, and a collection of toiletries all brand new.

A suspicion rose within her, but she turned to the door across from her bed. With a small reluctance she pushed open the door, seeing an entirely ordinary bathroom.

Maybe not ordinary. It was certainly one of the most luxurious bathrooms Y/N had come across. More so than any of the loos in Elias' estate. Wherever he was in this residence, she knew they were no longer in the Caen estate.

She stared around the room a little longer. Catching vast darkness of the sea beyond her windows, the perfect stillness of everything in her room but the thin curtains at the balcony doors. Then her eyes landed on the door. The door that no doubt led to the rest of the home. With careful steps, she went for it, pressing an ear to the chilly wood.

Silence.

No matter how long she stayed there, nothing.

So instead, she spun on her heels, collecting everything from the drawer's surface in her arms, and went back to the bathroom. It all sprawled across the ceramic counter as she dropped these given items. She first took the FX removal box, reading its instructions. She glanced up slightly into the mirror, eyeing the peeling bodysuits, then her face for a moment. Her Y/H/C brows, her tired and weary face.