Until My Darkness Goes
By Waltzmatildah
.
.
I see a line of cars, they're all painted black...
.
He wakes to weak sunlight filtering through heavy drapes that hadn't quite been dragged to closed the night before. Struggles through a dense fog of incomplete memories and a vague feeling of oh crap before coming up empty handed.
Pushes unsteadily to upright as his stomach rolls about in time with the pounding beat drumming against the inside of his skull. He stills to solid for a second, makes out the creaking of foundations beneath his feet and the humming buzz of the refrigerator in the basement. Detects nothing else from inside the house that might indicate visitors, or even Stefan's presence for that matter...
Stefan.
Remembers instantly then where the oh crap comes from.
He's still in his jeans, though his discarded shirt has been neatly folded into a square at the foot of the bed.
And he remembers it all now.
Klaus, and Stefan, and the werewolf bite that should have killed him but didn't. Katherine with all her sweeping statements and barely concealed insincereity.
Elena.
Elena.
He stumbles into the bathroom, forces eye contact with his own reflection for a solid seven counts before the haunting hidden there is too much even for him. Collapses back into the shower, doesn't bother to remove his jeans first and lets the ice cold water wash away any truth that might still be clinging to the under-side of his fingernails. To the creases in his trembling palms.
Figures he'll deal with the taste of her still ghosted on his lips a little later on...
.
.
.
He wonders, absently, when she might have left. Hours ago? Or maybe only minutes. Maybe she stayed, made sure he was still alive come morning and then headed out to check on everyone else.
Maybe...
Various pitiful scenarios fill the cavernous spaces inside his chest. Have him half hoping for things that he has no right to even contemplate.
He leaves a trail behind him, storm-water that follows his every footstep as he traces his way around the room. Collects his cell phone from the desk in the corner and wonders how many fingers of scotch it'll take before he can bring himself to call her.
Wonders if seven fifty three am is too soon to start.
.
.
.
Stefan's bedroom door is open as he passes and he offers the interior a cursory glance. Already sure of what he'll find.
Or won't find.
Hopes his brother can hold out just long enough for him to mount some semblance of a rescue mission. Though knows without needing to think about it that Stefan's never needed him...
Not really.
So what makes him think this time will be any different?
.
.
.
At the top of the staircase, the world does a slow spin. The effect is equilibrium shifting and he wonders whether Cure By Werepire Blood comes with any lasting side effects.
Some lingering reminder that he's not as invincible as he's been led to believe.
His arm still feels like it's on fire, though the skin itself is nothing more than mottled bruises that extend from his wrist and fade out to almost gone just before his elbow. He thinks drawing his fingers into a fist would be impossible but he's not had reason to test the movement so far.
The shrill bleat of the cell phone in his pocket startles him more than it ever should and spins wildly to the left once, more than half convinced he's being watched.
But the room is resolutely empty, the heavy tick tick tick of the clock in the corner his one constant companion. The caller id spells out her name, black against the iridescent screen. He stares at it for a beat, unconvinced even as it continues to ring, before forcing a modicum of calm.
.
.
.
"Elena." Rolls his shoulder once in an attempt to dilute the constant ache that has taken up residence deep in his bones.
"Damon, oh good, you're awake!" Her excitement is palpable and he feels something inside of him shift more than a little to the left.
"Indeed I-"
"Have you heard from Stefan?"
Oh.
He drags in a breath he doesn't need and lets his eyes slide to closed.
"No. Not so far-"
"It's okay, Bonnie's figured out a locater spell we can do-"
So that's where she's been. He laughs. Bitter.
Shakes his head.
Serves himself right, really...
"Okay, good. What do you need from me?"
"Nothing-"
Of course not.
"But we do need something of Stefan's. Something important to him, something no-one else-"
"But you're already there."
Self-deprecating. And he notches up a minor success when her voice skips a beat.
"Damon."
"It was a joke, Elena." A lie. It was no such thing. "Is eight am too early for humour these days?"
.
.
.
He promises to search Stefan's room for the perfect item. Is told that Elena will be there within the hour to pick it up, then they're going to do the spell, then they're going to find Stefan, then they're going to rescue Stefan. And then maybe kill Klaus while they're at it.
They have it all planned out it seems.
A doppelganger, a witch and a vampire. Sounds like the dubious plot of something vaguely b-grade.
He can tag along for the ride.
If he likes.
He hears her ask how he's feeling. A cursory enquiry at the very end of the conversation. He cuts the call off before he can bring himself to answer.
.
.
.
As much as the house is basically his, and as much as the rights of others, especially those of his little brother, have never really been of concern to him, he feels like the worst kind of voyeur as he sifts through 145 odd years of memories that Stefan has managed to collect.
Ticket stubs and tacky souvineers. More atrocious clothing than one man could ever really need.
Shoes and hats and chunky jewellery from every era bookended by now and 1864.
Makes a mental note to suggest a yard sale after they get him back.
Refuses to contemplate the notion that it might not happen.
.
.
.
He's gathered up a selection of items that he thinks might make the grade. Cradles his aching arm across his chest as he decides on one more sweep of the room. Wonders how he'll hide the residual agony from Elena when she arrives.
Wonders if he'll even need to.
The desk in the corner houses a set of three drawers that he's yet to explore. The top two reveal little more than a novel and some spare change. A pair of socks and a hairbrush that he thinks is probably Elena's.
He decides he doesn't care.
Slams the drawer back to shut and roughly hauls the bottom one to open. Notices almost instantly that it's smaller than the first two. Appears to have some kind of false back in it.
He laughs. Rolls his eyes. Figures only Stefan when it comes to such an obvious hiding spot and easily shatters thin plywood that had been creating the secret compartment.
Is still lost in the hilarity of the whole exercise even as he drags the contents one-handed from the back of the drawer, out into the filtered daylight. Doesn't even feel the laughter die on his lips as his whole world goes white. And black.
And back to white again.
.
.
.
He registers the acrid burn of bourbon as it scalds a fiery trail through his numb insides. Doesn't remember collecting the bottle but a quick glance will tell him that most of it is already gone. The cause of the steady humming that has replaced the ice in his veins.
His injured arm is a dead weight in his lap, fingers curled uselessly towards his palm. He can't even feel them anymore. He's sitting with his legs crossed awkwardly. A pose he doesn't think he's taken up since he was nine years old.
Feels like maybe he's back there again. To a time where nothing really made any sense and his mother was there and then she was gone forever and his father was always so endlessly disappointed in him.
The front door slams to closed with a resounding echo that reverberates through his rib-cage. Elena's voice fadesout and in, in and out in time with the beating riccochet of his of own heart. He closes his fist around the bottle by his knee. Musters just enough strength to get the lip to his teeth.
Swallows and keeps swallowing and wonders just how much it would take to drown him whole.
.
.
.
"Damon?"
The pounding of soft gym shoe against the hardwood stairs breaks the trance he can feel himself sliding towards. Decades of running and he thinks now might just be the time to stop.
To stop all of it.
"Damon?"
Quieter this time, but infinitely louder as well.
She's paused in the doorway. He can hear the thrumming boom of her heart sustaining the physical exertion required for her to race up the staircase two steps at a time.
He doesn't need to look up in order to detect the confusion that paints her face, mask-like.
"Damon, what's-" And he thinks she's said his name so many times in the last ten seconds that it no longer holds any semblance of meaning.
The squeal of her shoes on the polished wood tells him she's taken a few steps. Is inching her way towards him, wary and unsure.
"Damon," His name. Again. "Are you okay."
He thinks he owes her something. Offers up a one shouldered shrug in lieu of anything more definite.
It is all he has left to give.
.
.
.
In his peripheral vision he watches her reach down. Tentative fingers that stutter twice before making contact with their intended target.
He's spread them out. Like a crime-scene wall, only he's used the floor and he's sitting right in the middle of it all.
Figures, for once, that he might be the true victim anyway, and so the picture he creates is oddly fitting.
He hears her intake of breath. Sharp. Shocked.
Feels at least somewhat vindicated about his own retreat into stupor.
"Where did you find these?"
She's moving quickly from shock to anger and he wonders if she's altogether skipped the disbelief that he seems to be perpetually stuck in as she scruffs at more of the photographs before dumping them back at his feet.
"Where did you find these?"
He opens his mouth to answer but finds he lacks the air required to form the necessary consonants and vowels. Drops his jaw back to closed with an audible clink and goes for the one shouldered shrug once more.
.
.
.
She seems to remember him then. To realise that this is not all about her.
That the endless pile of candid snapshots he's currently surrounded by might mean something to him too.
"Do you think they're real?" And he snorts at the inherent naievity in her words. Shocks himself as much as her with the sudden vocalisation. Seems to find his voice then.
"Well, unless you remember hanging out in the front row at Woodstock then I'd say there's a fair chance they're real."
He roughly scruffs the polaroid of Stefan and Katherine laughing, arms wrapped around each other loosely as a band sets up on the stage in the background. He tosses the image in her direction and she lets it bounce off her right hip.
They both watch as it flutters heavily back to the floor.
One final piece in a puzzle of betrayal that appears to start with the very advent of photography itself.
.
.
.
He loses track of time then.
Elena sinks to seated in front of him, her knees pressed lightly against his. Shadows elongate across the room, the only indication that the outside world is still turning.
He lets his eyelids flutter to closed. More exhausted than he ever remembers being previously. She's silent on the other side of him. Lost, like him, amongst the enormity of what it is they've stumbled upon.
He startles when her fingertips touch against his own, still curled lifelessly in his lap. He flinches at the sudden contact, arches his spine against the re-awakened fire that ignites his nerve-endings.
"Damon? What's wrong."
He laughs because, honestly, where should he start?
Laughs and almost forgets how to stop.
.
.
.
She's fashioning a t-shirt of unknown origins into a make-shift sling when he starts to speak again. The warmth of her hands, scalding against his own perpetual ice cold.
"I am such an idiot."
She disagrees. He already knew that she would.
"No really," he insists, dark and thunderous. "One hundred and forty five years and I never had a clue. Not one."
Her fingers still against his shoulder blade, he can't see her face but the pity in the room is almost palpable.
"Damon..."
And he wishes she's stop doing that. Saying his name all soft and earnest, like maybe it means something to her after all...
"Is she still here?"
She doesn't elaborate but then, he doesn't need her to.
"Doubt it. I'd guess she's taken what's left of the cure and gone off after them."
He hears her nod; the scrape of her hair as it shifts with the movement, resettles.
"So, what do we do now?"
He shrugs. Again. Feels her fingers move against his skin as he does so. Can't begin to imagine what it'll feel like when she lets him go.
"We'll figure it out," she whispers. "I promise you."
He doesn't believe her.
.
.
.
In the end they do nothing.
Ignore phonecall after frantic phonecall from all manner of well meaning friends before the troops arrive, en masse, to a man convinced that death and dismemberment had occurred.
And he can't help but to think that they're not far from the truth.
He gathers up the photographs. Shoves them roughly back into the drawer he'd discovered them in before slamming it back to shut tight.
She's watching him from the doorway, the others having arrived and then, reassured, left again in a hurry.
"Are you okay?"
She smiles softly, fails to hide the sadness etched into the lines of her face. Nods nonetheless.
"Are you?"
His instinct is to lie. To laugh out an easy of course that he absolutely does not feel and to pretend like everything is just fine.
But she's seen through him since day one and he doesn't think now is going to be any different. Takes the energy creating a falsehood would require and uses it to dump the truth at her feet instead.
"No. Not really."
.
.
The End