For all express and functional purposes, Damon was never actually supposed to get what he wanted. That privilege and joy was reserved for certain other family members. It was a weird and entirely unfair form of balance. The brooding one got the relationship, while Damon got…whatever it was he got. Normally it was Hedonism for its own sake. Drinking, drugs, cars, money and all the like.

On face, that sounded fine, but it got kind of cliché after a while. He had it all, whenever and wherever he wanted.

He hated it because it was just so damn easy. What's the point of finding pleasure if there isn't a chase?

Ideally, that was what made the other figure in his bed so appealing. Talk about a fight. Damon had nearly gone white-haired trying to get it all to work out in the end. God, he had even gone back to college to end up at this point. Granted, the University of Virginia wasn't the worst place to read books by Southern writers he had actually known in real life. Besides, there was all he could drink, coffee, booze or otherwise, at his disposal.

Yawning, Damon remained decently still in bed, not wanting to disturb the snoring figure opposite him. Good Lord, he was actually being considerate. He almost hated himself, but that would have been pointless. Damon could be a bastard all day long [which he was and always would be], and he still just knew that his bed would always have the same person in it come sunrise and set. It was a level of stability than Damon found to be almost terrifying.

Their cramped dorm room seemed to contract in size dependent on the snoring from the other side of the bed. Had he not been more patient than he let on, he would have been out the door searching coffee and alcohol to mix together. On a level he would never admit to having, he found it little short of amusing. Anyone that could sleep so soundly they resonated like a tractor was either terribly flawed or entirely too perfect.

Sitting up slightly in the almost too small bed, the Southern vamp blinked the remaining traces of sleep out of his eyes. This was all so painfully cheesy. This was LifeTime movie bad. If this were an essay for a Creative Writing class, it would be a D+ at best.

And yet, here it all was, displayed in a cramped little dorm room with textbooks and papers covering whatever free space they had. This just could not be his life. It made absolutely no sense. Damon was supposed to be parties and really sick parlor 'games' and the occasional act of profound brutality. He most certainly wasn't spiral notebooks and calculators and term papers.

That's right, my term paper on the History of Slavery is due next week.

Wait, what? Did that thought really just go through his 170-something year old mind? God, he had gotten so lame. And nerdy. He didn't know what was worse. Probably nerdy. He shuddered to think what the rest of his undead clique would think about this. Though, he was working very, very hard to make sure that he was incognito as overly possible. Sadly, that meant blood packs and the occasional caper to a local blood bank. Partial charade or not, it was something he intended to keep up with, if only because it was passably convenient. Besides, everyone at UVA was so uppity that he worried consuming their blood might turn him into one of them. He had always thought that zombies were a Hollywood myth, he now thought differently.

Damon was, sort of, one of them. He now had 'school spirit' in the form of college t-shirts and whatnot. It was completely sickening and mindlessly addictive.

For all his current world, Damon, occasionally whining aside, really wouldn't have changed much. It was so oddly comfortable, almost a sort of packaged deal.

Though he was back in Dixie, the Old Dominion to be specific, it wasn't lost on him that he had been forced to travel all the way to New York City to find his opposite. How maddening had all that been? The people he had met up there were little short of shallow monsters. At least one had proven to be worthwhile, if only originally so very hard to get.

Damon had long thought he was the intellectual superior of everyone, and he long been proven right. The Upper East Side of Manhattan had changed that dramatically. He had actually been challenged, and ever when his secret had been discovered, he hadn't been abandoned. In fact, he had suddenly been viewed with curious, albeit lonely, eyes. That whole mess was still a bit much to think back on. All manner of emotions and feelings had been released.

Their dates hadn't been dates, just like their kiss hadn't been a kiss. Each was merely a random event that had happened for something similar to an exact reason. Damon knew he wasn't supposed to be attracted to someone so self-righteous and arrogant. It was baffling, all in all.

Lost in all his thoughts was the fact the other occupant of their bed had awoken, shifted and was now drowsily studying the halfway upright Salvatore.

"Did I wake you up?"

"Nah," Damon shook his head, almost smiling. "How'd you sleep? You were all efficient and studying when I finally got to bed."

"If I was snoring, then I slept pretty well."

"Touché, Dan." Damon laughed, easing himself back down on the bed. Dan Humphrey merely rolled his eyes.

"I told I snored when we signed up for a single dorm room." Dan pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah," Damon muttered, already trying to fall back to sleep. Dan chuckled and relaxed into his pillow. He was tempted to make a snide, writer-like comment, but refrained from such snobbery when he felt an arm very loosely drape over his shoulder.

Damon Salvatore was nothing if not territorial.