Summary: Elena forces Damon to open up about his past to her and learns why he turned into a monster.
Carlsberg Vintage 3. Best drink to ever be produced by man. Of course I would know, being that there is not a drink in the world that I did not own or tried before. Of course to have this beer, you have to be a very wealthy man. This beer is still considered as the most expensive beer in the world. The beer is priced at $348 per bottle. Imagine that, paying $348 dollars just for a drink. I would think it's ridicules too if I had not tried it myself. And I will tell you, this beer is the best one to cure any kind of-
"Damon?"
Elena. I could recongnize her voice anywhere even with my back turned facing the liquor cabinet.
I hear her footsteps growing stronger and louder towards me.
"What are you doing?" She asks behind me.
Other times I would have turned around, say a sarcastic comment, then go upstairs and drown myself more in my drink. But today, I didn't want to do that.
"Damon, are you okay? Are you upset?"
I give a light chuckle at her words. I could tell she was a little bit worried about me being upset and drinking. Those two were not a good combination with me. But lucky for me, I wasn't drunk. Thanks to my vampire immune system, it would take about eight beers to get me drunk, whereas it would take a human about three.
"Damon. Damon are you upset?"
That was it. Couldn't a guy drink in peace? I turn around and face her. "No, Elena, I am not upset. No need to be worried."
"I wasn't worried." She retors at me.
"Then why are you asking me these questions?"
"Because you don't look good." Silence. Absolutely silence. I open my mouth to say something but she cuts me. "You don't look the way you usual do, Damon. You're drinking yourself into a slumber and thats not healthy"
"Ha," I say with incredulity. "In case you did not notice, I am a vampire."
"That doesn't mean you have to drink yourself to death."
"I can't drink myself to death," I make clear. "even if I wanted to, I couldn't. And you see me drinking everyday, why is it such a big deal now?"
"Because I'm worried about you. You didn't answer my calls, and no one in town has seen you today."
I roll my eyes at her. "I'm not Stefan, Elena. I don't brood"
"But you drink,"
"It's either that or blood." I snap at her. "Unless you want me to go outside and kill a random stranger, then let me drink."
"What's wrong with you?"
"You!" I snap. "you're what's wrong with me. You keep treating me like I'm a fragile piece of glass that's going to break if someone as so much sneezes. Well I'm not. I have live 169 years doing just fine and I don't need a 18 year old telling me what to do."
Another round of silence fills the room and my voice echos though the house.
"This is about Stefan leaving, isn't it" She asks quietly.
I almost ran my fist through the wall after hearing that, but I kept my cool and just stood there.
"Not everythings about Stefan, Elena. I have a life too that doesn't revolve around my brother or anything else he does."
"I meant that you are so angry at Stefan that you are drinking-"
I cut her off with the sound of me laughing. "You think you know everything. You know nothing" I say then walk past her and towards the stairs to get away from her.
"Well, I would know something if you opened up to me. You keep all your emotions bottled inside and that's not healthy."
I scoff at her then turn around. "What do you want from me, Elena?"
"I want you to open up to me."
I scoff again at her. "I have let too many people in and have always ended up broken. I'm not going through that again."
"Well, I'm not like them. Damon please. You're so close. Don't be so quick to give it up."
I stood there in silence, looking at her while she was looking at me. It wasn't until about a full minute passed that she made her first move. She walks towards me and wraps me in a tight hug. A part of me wanted to hug her back, but a part of me wanted to push her away. I did nothing but stand there and let her embrace me. 10 second later after she hugged me, she pulled away and held my face in her hand.
"Let me in, Damon. Let me in so I can help you."
There she was. Standing in front of my, eyes fixed on mine, asking me to let her in. With no more fight left me in me, I give in.
"Okay," I whisper her to her. "but don't expect me to tell you everything."
She shakes her head. "All I want to know is why you're like this. Why you push everyone that tries to get close to you away."
I knew the answer to that perfectly.
"Sit down" I croak a little bit. She complies and sits down the couch. I take a seat across from her.
"The year was 1877...
I had left Stefan because he was getting too addicting to the blood and I didn't want to get caught in it. I saw what Stefan was like and didn't want to become like him. In, fact I never wanted to be a vampire. I only wanted it so I could be with Katherine forever. When she died, or so I thought, all I wanted to do was to kill myself and go join her, rather than to give in to the blood. I was living on mostly animal like Stefan, but a day or two I'd drink from a human.
So, one night I was sitting on top of a building when I saw a woman walking through a dark alley. She looked young, with emerald green eyes and her dark hair. She was hurrying with every step, speed walking. I didn't blame her though. With Stefan drinking madly, it was not safe to be in the streets at night, especially alone.
In the midst of all her speed walking I heard a snap and a shrill cry. I knew it was her so I got down closer to see. There she was on the floor, grabbing her leg. The bottom of her heel had snapped and she was on the ground in pain due to a broken ankle. A part of me wanted to help her and another part of me wanted to suck her dry of any blood that was flowing between her veins.
I turned around to walk away when she cried again. I realized that she tried to get up but her ankle wouldn't let her. I still had my humanity in me and walked towards her.
"Need help?" I asked her.
She looked at me strange then down at her ankle. "Please,"
I helped her up after she said that and carried her to her home.
"Thank you. It's not everyday you meet a gentlemen out in the street at night."
"It was no trouble," I said setting her down on her couch. "but you might want to stay off that ankle for a while. It's still bleeding" I told her hoping she would cover it up before I killed her.
"Thank you again,"
I nodded at her. "Again, no trouble, miss..."
"Angela Romano. And you are?"
"Damon," Just like that I had told a completly stranger my identity. And just like that we had a friendship. She told me she would pay me if I stayed with her, so I did. I didn't really need the money, but I had to stay hidden due to the fact Stefan had tried to kill John Gilbert and he survived. He knew our faces and could have us burned to death in a second.
So I stayed with her for two months without her knowing that I was a vampire. Her broken ankle had healed a month after she had broken it. She called me her friend but I didn't want to go to those terms.
One day in October, I was alone at the house when a bird flew and stopped in front of the window. I took it and bled it dry, feeding on it. She saw me by accident and just stood there watching it. I didn't realize it until after I was done. It took a while but I got her to trust me again and prove to her that I meant no harm to her. I didn't tell her about my past or anything else like that. After that incident, she started sneaking me blood from where she was working. Back then we didn't have hospitals just huts to take care of the patients. She took them rarely but only from people that were dying horribly.
...
Our friendship maintained the next few months until one December 27; the day that changed my life. Were were in the house, talking.
"Damon, do you believe in love?" She asked me that day.
I looked at her then answered, "I did, and I'm afraid it's going to take a long time to make me believe in love again."
She laughed at me. "Why?"
"Why do you believe in love? Describe me what love is?"
"Love is looking into his eyes, and realizing they are smiling only for you. Love is wanting to hold your child, or your mother, or your lover, for as long as you can imagine. Love is saying "I love you" to the person you love."
"Wrong," I said, "Love is described in many ways through peoples perception. An unconditional love though is the pure love most people seek. Its when the dust has settled and your partner and you are still very much happy. "I love you" are just words. Those words are meaningless unless actions prove it to be true."
She smiled at me. "Quite the poet."
I was about to say something when it happened. The door burst open and five men with guns showed up at the door. I saw them raise their guns and ran in front of Angela to shield her. That didn't stop them and they kept shooting. The gunshots were not as loud as I had anticipated. The metal fragments, spiraling through the air, pierced my chest and torso without consideration, without real meaning or relevance. I could hear Angela screaming even though the sound of the guns going off filled my ears. I didn't want to stay there and keep getting shot at so I grabbed her and sped upstairs in her bedroom and hid her. I couldn't get far due to the bullets in my body.
I could hear the men downstairs talking.
"I told you she was a vampire. No human would sneak blood that often for no reason."
"Well, don't just stand here telling me! Get her!"
I turned my attention to Angela, who was on the ground. I wasn't focus on her as much as I was focus on the men downstairs and what I would do. I had lost a lot of blood downstairs and was going to need a refil before doing anything.
"Damon"
I turned my attention to her again and that's when I saw it. There on the left side of her chest was a small hole oozing blood out of it. The small wounds in her flesh leaked blood much like the way crying eyes leak tears. I was stunned. The feelings varied, at first it was a gut wrenchingly all consuming sense of pain and loss that really made me want to scream and rage, then my stomach felt as though it was tied in knots and pangs of shuddering wracked my body.
A pressure built in my chest and my heart felt as though it would burst with emotion. But even though I was feeling all this emotions and pain, I couldn't say anything. My breath felt like it was ripped apart from my lungs.
I saw her open her mouth to say something but then the door was kicked open and the guys stepped inside, still holding their guns. That's when I lost it.
I tackled one of them straight through the wall and into the next room. I pierced his throat with my fangs deep into his jugular vein and ripped it apart. I attacked the next three, ripping their throats out, and their hearts. I had never felt so angry in my life. I heard footstepped downstairs and realized that I missed one. I sped downstairs and stopped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. He was shaking with fear as I moved towards him growling at him.
He pointed his gun at me and threatened to shoot me with it. I snatched it from him, breaking it in half before stabbing him with it in the shoulder. I stepped on his arm, while he was on the floor, and heard it snap in half.
I sped in the kitchen, grabbed the table and flipped in upside down.
"Please no more" He begged me as I made my way towards him.
I wasn't in the mood of pity and grabbed him by the collar. I sped with him in the kitchen and threw him face down on one of the kitchen legs. It entered his body and stuck out his back.
I stood there for a second, starring at his lifeless body, and suddenly remembered Angela. I sped upstairs to find her heartbeat getting fainter by the second. Before I had a chance to give her some of my blood to heal her, her heartbeat stopped completly. I kneeled beside her and stared at her. I was to angry to even think of tears right there and just stared at her. That's when it hit me: this was all human's fault. Humans capture Katherine, human's killed her, and a human shot me and my brother, turning us into this.
From that point on I loathed humans. I realized Stefan was right about what he was doing and turned my humanity off. I promised myself I would no longer care or let myself get close to a human ever.
I burned the house down to kill any evidence of anybody finding out about that, and moved to another place.
I was done. I had just told Elena my whole reason on why I was like this. I could feel the tears burning in the back of my eyes desperately wanting to get out, but I forced myself to keep dry. I couldn't risk feeling about Angela. The pain was too much to take.
"I'm so sorry," She says with tears in her eyes.
I believe she's sorry but don't want it. I don't want or need anyone's pity.
"That why your so angry today," She says. "today's December 27."
I force myself to chuckle at her. "Now you know why I push people away from me. I can't go through the emotional pain I went through again. I can't lose anyone else."
She stood up from her seat and sat next to me. She pulled me towards her and hugged me. This time I let myself wrapped my arms around her waist and hug her back.
She pulls away from the hug and places a kiss on my lips. It lasted for about four seconds before she pulled away.
"You won't lose me," She whispers. "not now, not ever."
Thank you for reading.
