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AN: Lol, what is plot? More angst. More thoughts. Damon/Rose. Prompt 'Being Human' from tvd_rareships, for both the Weekly Prompt and the Fortnightly Pairing Pimp. Enjoy! Oh, and sorry in advance for the dig on Need You Now. I love it, really.

He misses being human. It's his biggest secret.

Damon stumbles home sometime after he kills Jessica. He's not entirely sure how long it's been, but the alcohol's starting to wear off and he's tired as hell. Once the front door of the boarding house closes behind him, however, the memories of the past few hours hit him like a ton of bricks. He swallows hard, pushes them to the back of his mind, and goes upstairs.

His bed is empty. He can't even look at it without remembering what happened there, so he flees for the bathroom instead to wipe the blood from his face. A glance in the mirror turns to minutes of staring at his own reflection, trying to figure out why his eyes look so dead. He didn't care about Rose. He doesn't understand why people keep insisting he did.

He really needs to stop lying to himself.

Again, he shoves the memories away. Right now he's drunk and just did something very, very stupid that Bonnie will probably make him pay for later, not to mention there's a black hole inside his chest that used to be his heart.

Damon runs a hand over his face—wet with tears, as expected—and sinks onto the cool tile floor. Before he knows it, his eyes slide closed and sleep overcomes him.

—

He wakes up on the living room couch, with no idea how he got there.

Someone notices he's awake, even though his eyes aren't fully open, and comes to sit beside him. Whoever it is, he can tell it's a woman when she brushes the hair from his face far too tenderly to be Stefan. Elena, perhaps. His eyes open blearily and his mouth prepares for a snarky remark, until he recognizes the green eyes staring back at him. He can do nothing but swallow his comment, stare open-mouthed in shock, and forget how to breathe.

Rose smiles at him brilliantly, teeth flashing in the morning sun, and says quietly, "Good morning."

It's a few more seconds before he can get his shock under control. "Am I dreaming?"

Her smile fades a little, and he realizes he's just thrown her words from last night back into her face and managed to sound incredibly corny all in one fell swoop. She shrugs, he blinks, and suddenly they're in his room.

The house must be empty, he thinks, because who would tolerate that twangy, cheesy country-pop issuing from his stereo? Rose must like it, however, because she's in his arms and they're dancing; she's even humming the melody. It's all very strange, and Damon wonders what in his head prompted this dream (he knows now, is positive).

And I wonder if I
Ever cross your mind
For me it happens all the time

The lyrics are a little too perfect.

"You know," he murmurs into Rose's shoulder, "I don't usually dream."

"Oh?"

"Much less about people who I... well." He doesn't know if that sentence was going to end with loved or killed. He lets it hang.

It seems Rose isn't sure either, but she rests her head on his chest and says, with a hint of a smile in her voice, "I'm just special."

Another shot of whiskey
Can't stop looking at the door
Wishing you'd come sweeping
In the way you did before

Damn, these words are too perfect. But he blinks, and he's outside.

"I miss the sunlight," Rose says from beside him, standing in shadow.

There is a long pause. Damon moves behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on the top of her head.

"You were right," Damon replies at last. "I do miss being human."

She frowns. "I don't remember telling you that."

Honestly, neither does he, but it sounds right on his tongue. She turns and he kisses her, the woman who never fails to look straight through him, and thinks that she at least gave him the idea.

She extracts herself from his arms carefully, delicately, as if she's afraid she'll break him. He's always forgetting how much older she is, and she could probably hurt him if she wanted. Not that it would matter. She's already broken him in more ways than he can count.

"I have to go," she says.

"Please don't."

She smiles and steps back into the sunlight, but the world goes black before he can watch her burn.

—

He wakes up properly this time (come on, this isn't Inception), no longer on the bathroom floor but safely in his bed. Stefan must've found him late last night. How… brotherly.

He swings out an arm across the bed, staring at the ceiling, half-hoping Rose is beside him despite what his memories say.

His hand only meets air.