The Switch
Disclaimer: Vampire Diaries isn't mine. Damon belongs to me, though…in my dreams.
A/N: SEASON 2 Premier SPOILER ALERT. Damon descends into darkness.
It was always Stefan.
Damon squeezed his eyes shut as if he could somehow erase the memory of Katharine's face from his mind. He gritted his teeth when he realized those four simple words would forever replay in his mind. He would mark that day, no…that moment, when Katharine had actually been honest with him with those four words.
It will always be Stefan.
But what really killed him were five little words from a pair of identical lips. Elena. She had lied. He knew Elena had lied. He knew. He twisted his lips disdainfully at the sheer desperation of the little voice inside of his head. Look who was lying to himself now. The truth was, and it felt like a cold shard of ice staking him right through the heart, was that he needed her to be lying. He needed to believe that Elena had lied. Because if she had told the truth...then, there really wasn't much point in sticking around this godforsaken life to find out if always was really as long as it sounded like.
He almost laughed at the irony of the situation.
It was easier to believe Katharine who had always lied to him, than to believe Elena who claimed to tell the truth. Katharine had been the reason for his immortality, and yet...it would be Elena who might well make him wish to end it.
It will always be Stefan.
Lie or not…he would remember those five words. He would remember how they killed him inside. How the pain—like a glass shattering inside of him piercing his heart, his soul, with thousands of shards—had almost dropped him to his knees. He would remember how he had struggled—he had never struggled before—to find that little switch inside of him that told him he could turn this pain off. How he almost lost the struggle…how he almost fell to his knees to beg her to please make it stop.
Then he would remember how he had killed Jeremy without a second thought.
Because it was the only way to go deep enough in the darkness that the pain was numbed. To go in the darkness where nothing mattered but the satisfaction of the most basic of instincts.
Like rage. He had succumbed to it. He would remember the snap of the neck, the limpness of the body...
He would remember her scream that pierced through his dark haze. Her cries. Her dark head bowed over her brother's still form. Her eyes—so dark, so anguished, so accusing—he would remember how they looked at him.
And he felt…
Fuck it. He still felt.
Damon threw his drink into the fire and watched it blaze for a single moment. He let the bitterness, the pain, the rage inside of him expand and fill him until he felt like his whole body would rip apart from the sheer amount of emotion he was feeling.
That single act of snapping Jeremy's neck had given him a momentary relief from the pain that Elena had dealt. Yes…just like his drink had fueled the fire for a brief moment. He would need to work much, much harder to find the darkness inside that would blanket all this raging feelings into nothingness.
He smiled coldly at the fire, his eyes blank, the flames reflecting in their dark blue depths. He could live with that. For eternity if he had to. After all –
It will always be Stefan.
Always was a very, very long time. Damon started to chuckle-a dark sound that reverberated throughout the empty room. Oh, he might just stick around to see how long always lasted.
END.