A/N: This is set in season 1, sometime after the whole opening up the tomb debacle, I guess. That's the only event it actually references, anyway. Enjoy!
A World Full of Hermans
by
Bloodless Igby
It's a hot day in Virginia, hot and humid and unrelenting save for the whisper of a breeze that kisses his side now and again. The birds are chirping, the leaves rustling with animals who are safe from Damon's teeth, for he is not his brother, he will never be his brother, that weak thing that sacrifices all that is good and wonderful and delicious in this world. Human blood. Damon licks his teeth, hopes for remnants of a taste long since soaked up by his tongue.
It's on his shirt, though. And on his hands. And there's more than a little on the ground, all cold and unappetizing now, spilling out between arms and legs and torso, separated by Damon himself, soaking green grass in a delectable crimson.
It'll all smell bad soon enough. Even to him. And there are already bugs flying at the ripped shreds of human flesh, settling on bone not quite clean and sucking. Bugs are disgusting. Damon has never liked bugs. He smacks at his own cheek when he feels them, waves them away with an irritated hand.
"Stupid bugs," he grumbles, and rolls his eyes in a way that is sullen and petulant and somehow charming, though no one is there to appreciate it. He shrugs to himself. It's always going to be just him, just Damon against the world, and he knows this. He's always known this, but it's times like these when he's out in hot Virginia wilderness all alone with the animals and the insects and the freshly dismantled corpse that he really feels it.
"Adiós, Herman," he says lightly, as he throws piece after piece of a guy who may or may not have been named Herman into the river. He had a good death. Useful all the way to Damon, then to bugs, and hopefully now, to fish.
It's cooler when he makes his way out of the trees, away from the water, where the air is open and the breeze hits him full on. Less bugs, too. Good times.
His car is lonely on the side of the road. Damon trails an absent hand over its hood. He's feeling off, he's feeling too much. He's feeling solidarity with his lonely car, and feeling nothing for Herman all in pieces making his way downstream.
Whatever.
He shakes it off. He gets in his car. He drives home.
He's all poetry in the shower, tilting his head back and letting the water cascade over his chiseled face. His hands are down below, though he can't think of a word to describe what they're doing. Jerk is ugly and abrupt and not suitable for a vampire who drinks blood out of lowball glasses.
He tries not to think about her. Her or the other her, the nice her and the mean her and the clusterfuck of events that brought him here, where he has to fight that overwhelming wave of desire he feels for both. There should be no her. He should just kill both of them. Just like he killed Herman.
Or maybe he should just kill another Herman. Herman helped him feel a little centered throughout the majority of the afternoon. Maybe another would get him through the night. Hell, if he just slaughtered every human in Mystic Falls, he'd be set for a few months at least.
But he can't do that. He can't do that because the nice one wouldn't approve and Damon desperately needs her approval. That means he has to watch what he eats. He can't get fat on a lack of humanity or he'll see it on her face every time she looks at him.
She'll never love him.
He doesn't care.
He turns off the water and slips out of the shower, rubs his body down with a towel and starts getting dressed. He hears them downstairs, his baby brother and that girl with the face they've always had to share in some way or another.
Elena. That's what this one's name is. Not Katherine. Katherine's somewhere else, outside of the tomb because Damon's been there and Katherine wasn't there and she's known where he was all along. She just couldn't give half a damn less and that's fine. She's a bitch.
Damon desperately wants to kill another Herman.
He's still pulling a shirt over his head when he enters the den. They stop sucking each other's faces off long enough to glare at him for the intrusion. Normally, he would stick around, maybe flop himself down onto the couch between the two of them, put his arms over their shoulders and make sexual advances towards Elena until his brother decided to try to get ballsy and fling him off the couch, but not today. Damon just doesn't feel like it today.
...and there's the faint sound of tinkling music reaching his ear that is giving him something of a pavlovic reaction.
"Aw, you guys," he says, quite pleasantly. "I know you're delighted to see me and all, but I'm afraid I must dash."
"What a shame." Elena's sarcastic. Whatever. He knows she's fond of him.
"Don't you get all sarcastic on me, missy," he returns lightly, and his dead heart may or may not flutter a little when she smiles.
"Where are you going?" Stefan asks, a vague note of suspicion riding his voice. Mostly it's concern. Not for Damon, mind you, but for all the potential Hermans out there.
Damon waves a dismissive hand at these unspoken accusations. "The ice cream truck. It's in the park."
"I don't hear any ice cream truck."
Damon rolls his eyes. He can see that Stefan has instantly realized his own stupidity, but he has to say it anyway: "That's what happens when you eat squirrels for sustenance, O' Great Murderer of Small Woodland Creatures."
Stefan looks every inch the annoyed little brother, which, to be honest, is how Damon likes him best. When Stefan's annoyed, he's not visibly brooding. Brooding is obnoxious. Damon kills Hermans so he doesn't have to do it.
But, yes. The ice cream truck awaits.
"Ciao, bella," he says with a wink to Elena; and nods to Stefan. "Step-on-Me."
Stefan scowls. "Step-on-Me?"
Damon arches an eyebrow, widens his blue eyes momentarily in a way that is rather demeaning and malicious. "1991, little brother. Full House, season 4, Stephanie wants to change her name to Dawn because all the bastard children at school tease her with cruel nicknames like Step-on-Me."
Stefan stares, thoughtful, and slowly affirms, "So, in this scenario, you're a bastard child."
Damon nods. "And you're a blonde, nine-year-old girl with self-esteem issues."
He's more than a bit gleeful when he hears a tiny giggle escape from Elena's mouth, but that's it. He's officially won this fight. He zooms out the door before either of them can get another word in.
Part of him wonders if he should be ashamed for making references to family-oriented sitcoms from the 90s, but he brushes these thoughts aside. After all, it's not his fault Full-fucking-House runs on various channels at least five times daily. And he's living for eternity, goddamnit. He gets bored.
He comes to a smooth halt with his back to a tree trunk, sniffs the air, inhales that wonderful scent of summer: the flowers and the grass, and the frozen milk, sugar, chocolate, fruits and what-not wafting from that happy truck parked on the sidewalk, manned by that potential Herman that Damon is going to try not to eat.
He's here for the ice cream.
He gets himself together, struts out into the park, smiles charmingly at young mothers and not-so-young mothers and grandmothers as he walks by because they all look at him, and who can blame them? He could pull them away from the children in a flash, maybe with promises of a quick, but sultry affair, and he could drink, he could compel, then he could drink again. He could forget all of these stupid feelings and that unfortunate desire that's been torturing him for so, so long. His fangs could come out and he could hit that button, turn it all off, and he could just eat...
…But he's here for the ice cream.
He clears his throat. Herman Number God-Knows-What gives him a small smile. He's about Damon's age, or the age Damon was 145 years ago, which means he's not even close to Damon's age, but what the hell. Damon's not here to contemplate the ice cream guy's physical appearance.
"Hey, man, what can I get you?"
"I'd like one scoop strawberry, one scoop vanilla on a waffle cone, please."
Herman hands him this after a short amount of time, along with a plentiful number of napkins, which Damon thinks is rather courteous of him.
"That'll be four fifty."
Damon smiles politely and makes eye contact. "I already gave you the money."
There's always something dead about them when they're being compelled, when Damon stomps their free will into the ground. Slowly, the guy blinks, agrees, "You already gave me the money."
Damon nods, and shifts his already-melting ice cream cone to his other hand, wraps the base up in one of the napkins, pauses for a moment when his fingertips brush over the coarse paper. It's the small things that make him feel guilty. "You're going to have a nice day."
"I'm going to have a nice day."
Good deed done. He turns on his heel, walks away with his tongue already licking up the cold pink sweetness. The heat is slowly tapering off; the sun's starting its descent. It must be around five-thirty. Children are crying. They don't want to go home. Luckily, most of them have forceful mothers, so Damon doesn't have to listen to this grating sound for too long. Because he's not leaving. He's kicking back on a park bench with his ice cream cone and enjoying the death of daytime.
He doesn't devour ice cream like he devours humans. Ice cream, he savors. There's no hunger, no garnering of preternatural strength, just delectable, gooey dairy product with flavors that are both natural and artificial.
Yum.
There's no need to think about anything but this, this man-made magic collected in his mouth, no need to think about Stefan, or how Stefan's perfect, how everyone will always adore Stefan and think badly of Damon. Damon's a failure, a quitter, a bloodthirsty killer who can't be trusted or relied on in any way. He's just that dick who dumps near-bloodless and dismembered bodies in the river, washes himself of the grime, and skips off to the park for dessert.
These are true facts. Damon Salvatore does not live in denial.
He slouches back against the bench, sighs and tries to focus on the ice cream. He smells women's perfume, lots of it, in various scents carried by the wind from multiple necks and wrists straight to his nose. It doesn't do anything for him. Damon prefers the scent of skin.
He closes his eyes and listens to the crickets. He doesn't catch when the truck's music finally stops, but it does, and soon enough, the park is virtually empty, and Damon is finally alone—
"M-Mommy?"
Or he's not.
He opens his eyes, but he doesn't see her immediately. He hears the sniffles, though. Nothing too dramatic, just the sad, quiet sounds of something small and lost. She takes in a gulp of air, metal squeaks, and Damon turns his head to the old, but well-maintained roundabout. She's sitting on the edge with her feet dragging on the ground, toes scuffing into the dirt, wiping her little face with the back of a small hand, all seven years old and painfully unwanted.
Her hair is long and dark, cascading over slight shoulders covered by a green shirt with short sleeves that flutter.
Damon's immediate thought is that he should name her Herman.
But she's so small. There can't be much blood inside of her and things that are so scrawny are no fun to pull apart, and fuck it, Damon hates this stupid war blasting him apart from the inside. It would be so much easier just to walk up to this sad, little thing perched on this sad, old playground equipment, to take her face in his hands, and cup her tear-stained cheeks. One flick of his wrist, the sickening sound of snapping bone, and she'd be gone. And he'd feel okay.
Until he pressed that button again, and turned it back on.
He sighs, grumbles, "Fine, fine."
He gets to his feet, his ice cream cone still in his hand. The strawberry and vanilla are all melted together now, swirling, making sweet, sweet love inside his untouched cone. He walks over to her feeling extremely reluctant, but somehow obligated.
He doesn't stop until the toes of his shoes are almost touching hers.
She tilts her head up and back and meets his eyes. Hers are leaking the most pathetic little tears. Her nose is red. So are her cheeks, and there's some heat coming off of her. Damon's not sure if she's sunburned or feverish and he tells himself that he doesn't care.
"Hey, sweetie," he says lightly. He tries his best to keep the instinctual mockery out of his voice. "Where's your mommy?"
She stares at him, but doesn't speak. There's no fear. She doesn't look afraid or smell afraid. It's like she's just been hit with the inability to talk. Damon gets that. He often renders women of all sizes and ages absolutely speechless.
"Your daddy?" he tries again.
This time, she shrugs.
"Did they leave you here?"
Nope, not talking. She tightens her lips, indicating that he's not going to change this thing, whatever it is, about her any time soon. As far as Damon is concerned, she's a mute.
Then it clicks.
"You're not supposed to talk to strangers," he guesses, and she nods. Smart advice, really. Who knew parents these days had the ability to give smart advice? "My name," he says, and kneels so they're eye-level, taps her little knee with a free finger, "is Damon. I'm no stranger."
It's kind of true. Damon's not a stranger. Not to anything. That's something that happens when you're 170 years old.
"What's your name?" he persists. He thinks about it, but doesn't compel her. He doesn't know what's stopping him, really, but his mind is still full of those mullings-over of who he is and how people see him, and why. He doesn't know why. It's always been the same, even before she filled him with her blood, even before he died, even before he completed the transition with that lonely girl brought to him by his newborn brother's hands. Damon's never been that guy that people put their trust into.
"I can't tell you my name," she says quietly.
He perks up. It's a start. Her voice came back, and it came back just for him. He asks, "Can I name you?"
And she nods, and his dead heart flutters more definitively than it does for even Elena. How strange.
"Hmmm…" He looks up at the sky as if in deep contemplation. She giggles through her tears, which he totally understands. Damon's funny. Damon's a fun guy, the fun brother. He doesn't have a stick up his broody little ass like Stefan. "Beth," he finally says. It's random and meaningless, but she's not a Herman and that's what matters. "Is Beth okay?"
She nods.
"So you're Beth and I'm Damon, and we're not strangers?" he clarifies.
Again, she nods.
"Did your parents leave you here?"
She doesn't nod this time. She, in fact, shakes her head.
"Did you run away?"
She turns her head and doesn't look at him. This is all the answer he needs. He cocks his own head, and considers her, tries his best not to see prey. Damon's always trying his best, even when it doesn't look like it. Even when he doesn't admit it.
Her stomach rumbles.
Hunger. Damon understands hunger. Damon doesn't even have to consider hunger. Today, with its lonely feelings, and then this stint in the park with its good deeds, has his humanity running on momentum. He doesn't think about it, just stuffs what's left of his ice cream cone in one of her tiny hands and asks, "How come?"
She stares at the ice cream. He thinks, for a minute, that she's about to throw a "I don't take candy from strangers" his way, but she doesn't. She bites into the cone with a relish that tells germs to be damned.
He taps her knee again. "Bethy," he says, sweetness mingling with its opposite, because its getting tiresome, all of this niceness. "How come?"
She swallows. "Didn't want to move here."
"Ah. I take it that means you don't remember where you live."
She scuffs her toe into the ground again. "My house is yellow."
"Shutters?"
She nods. "They're black."
"One or two stories?"
"Two."
"Do you have a fence?"
"Uh huh."
"White wood, or chain link?"
"It's white," she says.
Damon knows the house. Damon knows all the houses. Because he's a predator, of course, who needs to know his surroundings. It has nothing to do with becoming bored with Full House and walking around all day while Stefan is in school. Not at all. Full House is both classic and mesmerizing.
"Come on," he says, and holds out a hand. "I'll take you home."
She doesn't hesitate. She takes his hand.
And on the way to her house, as she's devouring the ice cream cone like Damon devours people, he finds himself feeling a little peculiar. And a little less alone.
Fin.