you saw my pain washed out in the rain;
and broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins;
but you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart;
and you knelt beside my hope torn apart;
and the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view;
and we'll live a long life.
To be honest, it probably wasn't a smart thing to do.
Alaric let the vampire in anyway.
"What do you want?" he asked, propping the door open and walking to the counter where he'd been about to pour himself some scotch (which was, of course, Damon's fault).
Damon crossed the threshold with just the right amount of dramatic flare to set Alaric's teeth on edge. He'd been invited in before, and he took each entrance like a congratulations. He joined Alaric standing by the glasses and poured himself one. He tipped it towards the hunter. "You were expecting me, weren't you?"
Alaric pulled the muscles off his face up and showed the minimal amount of annoyance. He was too tired for this. "What do you want, Damon?" he asked again. "...Besides Elena."
Anger flashed in Damon's blue eyes, quick as a raven's wing across the sky. "To drink, but not alone." He put the glass to his lips and threw it down his throat, and smiled, cockily. "What do you want, Ric?"
"Not to die. And Jenna back." He sighed, rubbed his forehead, and set his glass down heavily. "Listen, Damon, I'm not really in the mood for this. I'm going to turn dark and try to kill all of you again. I'd prefer to do it in peace."
"Bonnie's looking for a way," Damon said firmly, in that way he did when something was unquestionable and obvious. There was that dangerous glint in his eyes that shared borders with psychotic agony. He poured more alcohol and flipped a smug smirk Ric's way before downing that, too. He grabbed the bottle again and Alaric caught his wrists. Electricity flew from the vampire's eyes, buzzing between them, a livewire of I dare you to do that again.
Alaric let go and said, "I don't want you drinking all my alcohol. I wanted to drink myself into a stupor."
"You've been living in a stupor for months."
"You've been living in a stupor for years," Ric retorted.
Damon's lip curled up begrudgingly. "Let's get in a stupor together," he said, and handed Alaric back his half-full glass.
"Again?" Ric asked, irritated.
"Again," Damon said flatly, and their glasses clinked and they drained them and poured another and another, and Ric might have told Damon about the other whiskey beneath the sink, and they might have ended up drinking that, too.
Except halfway through that, Damon's teeth found Ric's throat. Lightly, not enough to puncture or draw blood, just enough to feel, and Ric pressed against him, moaning louder and breathier than he probably should have. Damon answered with one of his own and kissed up to Ric's mouth, and their lips and tongues met like hundreds of times before. Both keened, tore off clothes. It wasn't the first time but it felt like the last...and it probably would be.
"I won't let you die," Damon said as Alaric pushed him down onto his couch, and there might've been tears in his eyes, "I won't let you die."
so give me hope in the darkness that i will see the light,
'cause, ohhhh, they gave me such a fright,
and i will hold as long as you like,
just promise me we'll be all right.
They sat side-by-side in the darkness surrounded by despair, drinking Alaric to his death.
"I told you I wouldn't let you die."
"Damon-"
"And now... you are. Ric-"
"I just want to be alone."
The silence may have been awkward. They tilted back their heads and stared into dusty grey emptiness, a void of broken hearts and things they'd lost and would lose and could never take back for real.
Damon turned to Alaric and lightly brushed his lips over Alaric's, just enough, his eyes soft and weak like fleece at midnight, charged up by a thunderstorm. They crackled.
He set the bottle down, and stood with an exhale that did nothing to relieve his tension.
Outside, Doctor Fell in-love-with-a-dead-man told him not to leave Ric alone, but what was he to deny a dying man what he said he wanted? A dying man's last wish: to die in peace.
Damon got drunk that night, and maybe he cried, maybe he missed being human, missed it more than anything in the world, but in the morning his best friend, lover, maybe-could-have-been, was alive and was out to get him, and he had no time for tears.
Of course he died again, all over again, and so did that other person he might have been in love with, that girl. How cruel to lose both. How cruel for her to choose his brother and for him to choose his dead lover. And who did Damon have?
That bottle of scotch and a whole lot of fucking memories.
((but hold me still and bury my heart on the cold,
and hold me still and bury my heart next to yours))