While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. ~John Taylor

Bourbon without you

It's Christmas Eve, families are sitting around the dining table, laughing, chattering, celebrating. I made a choice not to be part of one of those families, I could be sitting around a table like that right now, pretending to be happy, smiling as someone cracks a joke, but I don't have it in me, not this year. It's strange, Christmas used to be my favorite holiday. Stefan would light all the candles in the house, chasing away the darkness that hovered over our house. My father would sit at the head of the table and make conversation with us, pretending to be the family man he never was. Beforehand I'd sit on my mother's bed as one of the maids dressed her up, making her look beautiful for our father who was probably visiting another woman that undressed for him after the family dinner.

My mother was my angel, I worshipped the ground she walked on, treasured every word she spoke, admired every breath she took. She was the only woman that loved me from the moment she met me, she was the first woman that loved me, and for a very long time she was the last. Sometimes I think she's the only one that really got me, I had a little brother that admired me but when we talked, we talked about him. He never knew my motivations or my reasons, I just knew his. Even now, after being on this planet for over a century and spending way too much time of it with Stefan, I still think he doesn't know who I am; maybe he doesn't want to know. My father was much the same. My spirit was too complicated for him to figure out. But it wasn't complicated, he just never took the time to get to know me. My mother told me I lived too much in my head, I worried too much about things, I cared too much. What my father could never see in me, she saw; the light that was hidden in me, the love I had to give, even that dark side within me, she knew it was there but she embraced it with all of her motherly love. I was a lot like her, maybe too much like her. That must be why my father hated me after she died, being reminded of her hurt too badly.

The last Christmas I enjoyed was the last one with my mother, it was never the same again after she passed away. She'd sing songs with us around the Christmas tree, help us unpack our presents, read a story to us as she tucked us into bed. Most of the time she'd fall asleep while reading the story to us. Stefan nagged about it, I didn't care, I loved sleeping next to her, I did it so many times. The next Christmas was different, she was gone, I had sat next to her bed and held her hand as she slipped away from the world just a few months before. This That Christmas my father held the reigns, and for once he actually tried. I have to give him credit for that, he tried to smile, he tried to sing, he tried to make up for the fact she wasn't there anymore. You always hear that Christmas is all about family. My brother, my father and I, we were a family, yet Christmas apparently had lost all meaning to me the day I lost my mother. Christmas didn't have anything to do with family for me, it was all about her. So I didn't smile that night, even though my father tried to make me happy, I had nothing to celebrate. Just like I don't have anything to celebrate this Christmas.

It's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting in a graveyard with my "brother" buried six feet beneath me. It seems surreal that he isn't sitting around that dining table a couple of miles away from here - it felt like he was there. Maybe because I know Jeremy still sees him from time to time, and has those fatherly talks with him. It makes me miss him more because I don't have the same ability. I never told him that I highly appreciate the fact he always took the time to save my ass or cover my back. I never took the time to say to him I'd save his butt on every occasion too. But those words would have been a lie, I didn't save him when he was dying in my arms. That didn't mean I didn't want to. I fought him, yes, but I fought him to keep us both alive, I fought to keep the woman I love alive. I don't know if I could have ever chosen who of them got to live, this brother or the woman that had broken my heart just minutes before. Maybe it was getting back to her that made me fight back, I couldn't leave her unprotected. Even though I knew Stefan would give his life for her, he'd think about the consequences before he threw himself in front of her, he'd come too late. I wouldn't, because there was only one thing that mattered to me: keeping her safe, no matter what. I'd arrive before the bullet left the barrel, and if I didn't, I'd be the one to catch it before it touched her. But if that bullet was my best friend, I don't know what I would have done, maybe that would have been the one time Stefan was faster than me.

"I miss snapping your neck."

And I miss sitting next to him at the bar and nag about life and everything that has to do with it. I felt lonely for a long time, it's only now I realize it, now that I have gotten something back that had been missing for so long. After my mom died I was too young to realize what that emptiness inside of me meant, I carried it with me and after a while it became a part of me, I didn't even realize loneliness had become my friend. Until I came back here, haunting Stefan like a ghost, finding Elena, meeting Alaric, filling my life up with people, filling that emptiness inside of me with their presence. It had been over a century since I let that happen. The first time I felt it again was when I met Elena on that vacant road, she looked at me with those big brown eyes and asked me a question, it threw me off guard, I hadn't met anyone that was interested in me since my mother. And I hadn't realized how much I missed having someone there to share things with about my life and thoughts, she was the first one that made me aware of that hole inside of me again. I did a pretty good job of hiding it from Stefan, I put up my big bad brother mask and made him buy the act - he still seems to believe it. Then I met the brother my mother never gave me, we had a rocky start, but we found peace in our doomed relationship; we bonded over bourbon and killing vampires, not killing each other was how we told each other that we respected one another.

"Remember last time I snapped your neck?" I take a swig from the bottle. "You were such a big drama queen when you woke up, I almost mistook you for Stefan."

I have never regretted anything in my life, at least that's what I tried to tell myself. If I really sum up all the things I regret, I don't think I'll be able to understand how God hasn't let me burn in some fire, but then God is only something invented years ago to give the weak hope. Sitting here gave me that same hope as that fictive person gave the humans. Maybe one day everything I dreamed of would come true, maybe I am waiting here to see the dead rise from their graves, maybe I am waiting to see my children grow inside of Elena's belly, maybe I am waiting for some cure to make me human again. I still don't know if I believe there is such a thing, if there is, then why didn't every vampire rush to it? Maybe it is as much of a myth as the Easter Bunny.

"Jeremy dressed up as Santa, I fear if he keeps up this Holiday tradition I'll have to keep him away from Stefan next Eastern." I shake my head at the idea. "Sometimes he reminds me so much of you, not because no matter how many times I snapped your neck, you always came back. But because even when we vampires tried to kill you, you still had our backs. And at least Jeremy does that too since you retired and are now sipping margaritas in ghost world."

It still feels surreal to sit here alone and drink bourbon, but for some reason it feels more normal to sit alone in a graveyard and talk to a thumb stone instead of sitting at a bar and talk to an empty chair. Maybe because he's more here, I can smell his body rotting in the ground, it brings some kind of comfort. Yet you'd think I'd be at home, sitting in front of a fire place with my girl beside me. Because yes, she was my girl now, and not only because of some sire bond that seemed to make the connection between us even stronger. We couldn't stay apart, we'd tried, we fought to stay away from one another, we failed. We couldn't let go of each other. Maybe there was a sire bond, but maybe it only worked if just one of the two people involved was in love with the other. Maybe that's why we couldn't do it, because we were both smitten with one another.

"Damon?"

My head spins around at the sound of my name, my eyes fall on her perfect form, my perfect other half. She stand there between the rows of graves, her brown eyes watching me, her lips slightly parted as she waits for me to acknowledge her. But I keep my mouth shut. She's too perfect, her silk hair moving with the evening breeze, making it curl at the ends as it flies back into her face and swirls into her parted mouth. I can't stay away from her forever, never was I asked to do something more destructive, I don't know how I could ever think I would succeed in breaking away from her. If Alaric had still been here, he would have maybe managed to talk sense into me, he sometimes knew me better than I knew myself. But he isn't here and I tried to leave her, but we all know I wouldn't have really left, I'd hide in the shadows, I'd watch her for eternity. She wouldn't be alone, I'd make sure of it, she'd never be alone because I would always be there to watch out for her, maybe because I felt the need to protect her, or maybe just because I truly was as much sired to her as she was to me.

"Hey creepy." I clear my throat, fixing my eyes on hers. "What are you doing all alone in a graveyard in the middle of the night?"

"You're one to talk." She crosses her arms in front of her chest and gives me that cute glare. "Besides it doesn't seem dangerous to me when I'm sleeping with the monster that's hiding here."

"Ouch, babe. That hurts."

I thought I'd been in love before, I thought I loved Katherine, I think I had it all wrong. I didn't know this kind of love before Elena came along. Love is selfless, it doesn't ask anything from you but it makes you want to do everything for the person you're in love with. Then in some way love is the most selfish thing there is, because it makes you start craving things with a person that might not even want those things, you're asking something of them that they might not be willing to give you. But most of all, real love is only experienced when you're not only in love, but loved. I'm loved. She hasn't told me yet, because she knows that sire bond is playing in my head and she wants me to know everything is real between the two of us, she's taking it slow, letting me get used to the idea of being loved. But I can see it in her eyes, she looks at me the way I look at her, utterly, completely devoted. At night I find her staring at me, like she's scared I'll go up in thin air if she closes her eyes; I do much the same. Mystic Falls was never save, danger is lurking around every corner and everyday might be our last, I treasure her as much as I can, as many times as possible.

"Hey Alaric." She sits down beside me, taking the bottle out of my head. "We're about to start dessert."

"Stefan stared me out of the room." I roll my eyes at her. "And I wasn't drunk enough to deal with it."

"Caroline's giving me the same treatment." She sighs and places her head against my shoulder. "You'd think they would be over it by now."

If it wasn't for those two I would probably already have accepted Elena's explanation of having feelings for me, she was convinced of the fact that everything she felt for me was real. I wanted to believe it so badly, but then there were Broody Junior and Broody Senior, they didn't let me forget about the fact that Elena was sired to me, that everything she did and felt was to please me, not because she wanted to feel those things. Stefan wanted her back, Caroline wanted her to get back with Stefan, together they were forming some master plan to make it all happen, trying to make me believe I wasn't good enough to be loved by her. I know I'm not good enough for her, but I think I can love her enough to compensate for the fact that I'm not worthy of her. I can appreciate her and everything she is every second of the day, I can make her smile and keep her happy, maybe those things will someday make me deserve her.

"They don't like me anymore.'

I knew she struggled to be who she once was. Partly she seemed to have accepted that the old Elena wasn't coming back. But just like Stefan and Caroline reminded me every chance they got about the sire bond, they reminded her that she used to be someone else, she used to prefer Stefan over me, she used to live to please people. I don't know how Stefan can claim to love her, or to have ever loved her; isn't love all about accepting the person you're with for who they are? She's perfect, she's a vampire yes, she has urges to kill, but she fights them all as the brave girl she is. I think secretly Stefan wants her to break down and kill someone so he can fill her head with that talk about the cure, that he's going to find it for her so they can be again as they once were. I know she misses being human, but to be honest, I'm glad to have her sitting here beside me and being able to hold her in my arms at night, make love to her, kiss her in the morning, tell her about my day away from her, because the other option would have killed the both of us. The thought that she really would have died in that car crash, that she wouldn't be here anymore to yell at me or slap me in the face, that she'd lie buried here next to Alaric, it kills me with every second I spend thinking about it.

"They're all idiots." I wrap my arms around her frame and hug her to me. "You know what I think."

"What would Alaric think if he knew I was a vampire?"

"Why don't you ask Jeremy?" I whisper into her ear, my arm rubbing over hers. "I'm sure our ghost whisperer could get an answer for you."

"I know he talks to Alaric, how do you think I found you?" She gave me a look that told me enough about the conversation that Jeremy had with ghost Alaric. "But I don't think I want to know the answer."

"Do you know what I tell myself when I get these depressing thoughts about you not being human anymore?" I place my finger under her chin and lift her eyes to meet mine. "I'm just happy you came out of that car crash, no matter what you are, you're still here and that's what matters to me."

"But it changed me."

"It didn't." I shook my head at her, sometimes she really didn't know who she was. "You are now who I always knew you were."

Maybe it was because I met her before Stefan did, I got minutes with her before she got scarred for the rest of her life, but I saw who she was in those minutes. She was strong, she was caring, she was looking for who she really was. I think she found that person when she turned. There's a darkness hiding inside of her, just like there's in me, my mother saw it in me, I saw it in her, there's more to her than the sweet girl that would give her life for those she loves, there's the girl that would kill for those she loves. I don't think anyone saw it before she turned, I don't think she knew she'd do it before she became a vampire. Maybe it gave her the strength to do it, or maybe she finally figured out that fighting back saved more of her loved ones than sacrificing herself did. You'll never hear me say that I'm happy she became a vampire, I never wanted this for her, but if it's the only way to keep her here, then I'll gladly accept it. I do think she had to become a vampire to find herself, or maybe becoming a vampire just made her get to know herself sooner. It made her meet the darkness that lurked inside of her, it made her aware of what was going on in my head. Sometimes I think she had to become a vampire before she could love me.

"Some part of me is happy about this sire bond." She places her chin on my shoulder, looking up at me. "Even when I was human and everybody still liked me, I never felt so complete as I do now."

I kiss her right then and there. She's my everything, she fills the empty holes inside of me, just like my mom used to do, she's my other half, she's the one that completes me. I waited for over a century to meet her, I waited a year to love her, I went through the pain, the longing, I watched her love another man and I thought it would kill me, but like always, we even survived that. She's mine now, the sire bond only proof of our love, nothing more, nothing less, the proof we were meant to be like this, two halves, one whole. I don't know how Stefan could have ever thought she was his, he saw me love her, he saw me put my life on the line to save hers so many times, he could never love her like I do, not like she was meant to be loved.

"Damon." She pulls her lips away from mine, whispering my name huskily, her eyes burning into mine. "I love you."

"I love you too."

I've never been more certain of anything in my life. I want her next to me for the rest of my eternity, I think she finally wants to be there too. It's as if we had to go through all the drama before we could realize that the only ones we can always find support in is one another, that the only one always there for her to support her through anything, is me. Except for my mom, there was no woman that ever loved me, I only now realize how precious that kind of love is, not only giving it, but it being returned as well. It gives you a sense of purpose and belonging in life, it takes away the loneliness and fills you with emotions you never thought you could feel.

"We're giving Alaric a show." She tugs me by the lapels of my jacket. "Let's go home, have dessert and you can stay the night."

"Don't I always?"

Our relationship is so different from the one she had with Stefan, they'd done the whole teenage love thing, sleepovers, dates, coming over after a phone call, texting each other goodnight, but we are so much more than that. Maybe because what we share runs so much deeper than that. It's only now I start noticing the differences in our relationships, she had never rolled her eyes at Stefan as he said something to her, she never gave him that full smile that lit up the world, she didn't sneak up to him and hugged him from behind, they are all things she shares with me. I drive her crazy, I say things that make her roll her eyes, throw her hands in the air and then make her laugh out loud, she glares at me each day but only to smile after I shrug and turn away from her. We practically live together, she sleeps in my arms every night, I don't know how Stefan was able to sleep alone in his bed when she was only a few miles away, I can share her during the day with her friends and brother, but the nights are ours. I had to wait too long for her, I'm not going to waste any second that I can get with her. I think she feels the same way, she's independent, stronger than any woman I've ever met, yet sometimes when she crawls next to me in bed at night, I feel like she's more vulnerable than any other woman, because she has so many worries and such a weight on her shoulders, but she hides it from the world.

"Try not to steal the covers tonight." She cocks her head to the side, arching her eyebrow. "I will put vervain in your shampoo."

"Your kinky side is showing again honey." I smirk and touch her cheek. "And I have to steal the covers from you because you always steal them from me."

"I do not."

"Yes you do."

"Shut up or I'll stake you."

"You're so sexually frustrated," I shake my head at her. "I thought I gave you enough this morning to get through the day."

"Caroline's getting on my nerves." She runs her hand through her hair. "Who's idea was it again to celebrate Christmas Eve with all of them?"

"Yours." I rub her back, smiling at the pout on her face. "Because you're an amazing person and you wanted us to celebrate the holidays as friends, and it's a shame they're ruining it for the rest of us."

"Is that why you're hiding here?" Her eyes suddenly snap to mine, holding me captive. "Did they ruin it for you?"

"I was bored."

My gaze drifts back to the thumb stone in front of us. A couple of hours ago I stood in the middle of a group in the living room while I could hear Elena giggle with Bonnie in the kitchen, and I felt completely alone in the middle of all those men that were talking about nonsense. I ran from there, like I had done whenever the balls became too much for me when I was little. My mother would come after me, she didn't like the scene either, it was only to keep up appearances that she attended them. She'd sit with me for a while until her absence became rude, then she'd tell me to go play with Stefan and the other children, I looked for them just because I knew it made her worry less. I'd find them and I'd sit there watching them from a distance, I never really had a friend I connected to, not like Stefan seemed to connect with everyone around him.

"I miss him too." Elena gets up slowly, leaving a kiss on my forehead. "I'll text you when they're gone."

I look up and smile a little as she touches my cheek and turns away from me. She knows me so well, it surprises me every day. I thought I was the one that knew her better than anyone else, I didn't realize that all this time she seemed to have figured me out too. I rarely had to speak to voice one of my thoughts to her, it's as if they were transmitted to her, they didn't even have to be the same as hers, she just knew what was going on in my head. I am a lucky man. Yet, I chose to sit here in a graveyard, talking to someone that would never again talk back, except to Jeremy. It felt as if I turned my back on Elena when I chose to come here instead of stay at her house, but it doesn't seem to matter since the guests are following me anyway.

"I heard you before you stepped through the gate." I put the bottle to my lips. "Nice hunter you are."

"Alaric told me you'll have to bring a new bottle next time you come here."

"Why?" I arch my eyebrow at the lad. "Is he thirsty down there?"

"No, but you are up here." He seems to connect eyes with someone that I can't see. "So he tells me."

I smile and only nod as Jeremy sits down next to me, the exact same spot where Elena had been just a few minutes ago. I wonder where he sees Alaric now, it is weird to think there is actually the three of us here, only I can't see the third one. But for some reason it is a comfort that Jeremy can, it means he isn't gone completely, we haven't lost yet another friend because of our many fights against the evil that seems to lurk here in every corner. I don't know why Elena didn't ever escape from here; the thought of packing everything up and driving far away from here has crossed my thoughts a million times. Yet, she doesn't want to go, the exact reason of her conflict sitting next to me at the moment.

"You do know the graveyard is a place where the vamps hang, not the teenagers?"

"I'm a hunter surrounded by vampires in my own home." His hands ball into fists in his lap. "I might not feel the urge anymore to kill Elena but that doesn't apply to Caroline or Stefan or you."

"Is that a threat?"

"Maybe a warning." He chuckles and it makes me roll my eyes. "No, I don't feel the need to kill you."

"Why's that?" I smirk. "Do your hunter genes know they don't stand a chance against me?"

"I don't know." He shrugs, laughing uncomfortably. "It's just this feeling ..."

When you start dating a sister, you automatically have to bond with the brother. Not because you trust him to have your back when she's throwing things at your head, or keep his mouth shut about the moans that leave his sister's room, but because you trust him to help you keep his sister happy, you don't want him to run out of the dining room in the morning because he can't stand the sight of you, you want him to sit with you while you're having breakfast because you know it makes your girlfriend happy to see the two men in her life interact. I screwed up with the kid the second I screwed with his brain, but like his sister he had the ability to forgive you for murder. I guess my apology had been helping him out when he needed it; you'd be surprised how much you bond over killing vampires, just to complete a stupid tattoo on his arm.

"When Elena dated Stefan, he was just the guy that dated my sister." Jeremy pushes his lips together, lifting his shoulders. "With you I get the feeling that I'll be stuck with you for the rest of my life."

"Don't you wish now you had stayed dead when I snapped your neck?"

"It's okay, really." His eyes focus on the ground. "I just wish you and Elena wouldn't tear half the place down when you get it on."

"Great, another Gilbert that's sexually frustrated." I roll my eyes and sigh. "Try to get back in Judgy's pants before Professor Creepy puts his mouth where it doesn't belong."

"I think Shane already put his mouth there." He shakes his head in denial. "Or definitely in other places."

"That's not what Elena told me."

"Really?"

"You didn't get that from me." I take another draft from the bottle. "They have this girl code going on that says they can't tell anyone. So she tells me but I'm not supposed to hear it."

"Females are such extraordinary, but messed-up creatures.'

"I'll drink to that."

The kid grins and gets up from his spot, he grabs the bottle I offer him and takes a swig. Just a year ago I had erased the memory of a confused seventeen-year-old, now he is standing here in front of me as a man, ready to protect his sister and fight against what threatens her. Just like Elena he'd grown up, in just a couple months time, they became adults, scarred by so many things in their life, the past year had only added to that. They'd lost too many people in a short time, but both kept moving on, picking themselves up and finding support in one another - they were the definition of sibling love.

"I'm going back to the party." Jeremy puts the bottle down next to me. "You have fun."

"Thanks."

"By the way Damon." He turns around mid-step, locking eyes with me. "He misses you too."

I freeze for a second, my eyes boring into Jeremy's, accepting some knowledge he has. After I blink, I nod slowly and switch my eyes back to the ground. For a second I feel that loneliness again, but it has been a long time since my mother came sit beside me to make me forget about it. There isn't anyone today that takes my hand in hers and tells me she loves me, there are no arms that pull me away from the drag of life ... only there is. There is a girl waiting for me a couple of miles away, I'd spent the whole afternoon preparing a Christmas diner with her, she'd been happy all the time, that smile plastered on her face, even when her brother spilled something on her dress. There is a family waiting for me, like there once had been, they'll sing songs around the Christmas tree and I'll pretend it is pure torture the whole time, while in reality the smile on my girl's face will do nothing but make me happy.

"She thinks she's in love with me, I think she's in love with me too." I get up and get right in front of the thumb stone. "I have to go buddy. My girl's waiting for me."

I put the bottle back in its place and stand with my hands in my pockets, still doubting if that date on my best friend's stone is actually right, I'll have to check it someday. Last time I stood here, the children were lighting Japanese lanterns that had to give them hope, that had to chase their worries away; maybe the lanterns had made it okay. My life seems pretty good right now. I stand in front of a grave from one of the last persons I wanted to be in it, but life never turns out the way you want it to, otherwise I wouldn't be standing here. Maybe my life turned out better than I ever expected it to. Elena was alright, she'll be in my arms tonight, I'll make fun of her as she sings with her friends around the Christmas tree, and she'll roll her eyes at me, throw her arms in the air and yell something about me being an ass. But tonight she'll snuggle up against my side and fall asleep on my chest and I'll watch her and wonder how I ever got there.

"I got the girl, Ric."

Huge thank you to Sandra for taking the time to beta this!