a mighty pain to love it is.
Damon stares. He can't help it. He just stares. His eyes (those same eyes countless women have fallen into) are holding on to something in front of him, as if he is under some sort of compulsion.
This is just one of the times he's caught himself staring. At the way she holds her books, at the way her fingers brush her hair back away from her eyes, at the way she walks, at the way she... Just everything.
And he knows he shouldn't, and he knows it's wrong, and he knows she can never be his. But goddamnit, he wants her. Is that so wrong? Is it?
For years now, his love for that bitch has rang clear in his mind, he has not wanted any other. The sick memory of his faithfulness hits him like a stake through the heart. He was so in love. With an image though, not with an actual person. Who would have thought the elder Salvatore brother had ever cherished someone so much he swore to himself he'd never love again?
Oh sure, he's had his fair share of flings since then, one-night stands, but he'd always gone by the morning. Sometimes because he couldn't bear to wake up with another woman at his side. Sometimes because he had to rise early and dispose of the body. What did it matter? He felt the same either way.
But right now, he would give up every meaningless fuck he's ever had just to be able to hold her, to kiss her, to have her.
She's caught him looking and she waves, a smile gracing that beautiful face of hers. He waves back, feeling an icicle melt somewhere deep within him. They've become more frequent, these strange feelings inside his chest. His body feels uncharacteristically warmer, as if he's – he doesn't quite know how to describe it but he supposes he can give it a shot – happy.
That's not all though. Whereas before he returned to Mystic Falls he was indifferent and impassive and he could do whatever he goddamn pleased; now it's different. He wants to be the same Damon Salvatore he was all those moons ago yet he can't – something inside him is forcing him to care. Not just about himself, but about other people. About her.
The only way he can foresee to escape this mess he's in is to leave town. Disappear. Get out. Never look back. But that would mean leaving her. And can he do that to himself? To want someone so much and then turn his back on her seems... Well, it seems barbaric. And the new, improved Damon Salvatore is a better man.
A better man. A man who loves and cares and doesn't flinch when she accidentally brushes past him. A man who doesn't feel the urge to kill his brother when he sees Stefan kiss her. A man who will do anything – change, become human, take a thousand stakes before he lets them take her – if only she will love him back.
And if she doesn't... Then it'll be because she doesn't want to and that's okay, he realises. It's fine. Because he only wants to make her happy. And if to do that he has to watch Stefan touch her and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, he'll do it.
Because he loves her.