But Instead Do The Evil
by Cúthalion

"For I don't do the good I want to do, but instead do the evil that I don't want to do."
(Romans 7,19)

Being a vampire has its advantages, and plenty of them. Not having to age, or to die, for example... unless someone insists to stake you, that is, or mix you a nice cocktail of vervain. Or rip out your windpipe with his werewolf teeth. Which brings me to Mason, who won't ever rip out anyone's windpipe again... not after our small conversation. Do I feel sorry for him? Yeah, I actually do, in a way. He caught himself in the same trap I stumbled into more than a hundred years ago, the poor idiot. Katherine made him her puppet and let him dangle up and down on her sweet, malevolent strings, and now I've put him out of his misery.

Only to create even more distress, as it seems. Must be a kind of bad karma... or a sorry part of my inner nature. Take Stefan, for example. Baby Bro has written Noble Selfless Hero all over his face. He falls in love with Elena and gets the girl. He refrains from turning her and has meanwhile even convinced me that he's the good vampire while I'm anything but. He puts that spoiled, blonde brat Caroline on the same, silly diet he's been on for nearly one century, and - lo and behold! - suddenly the girl kicks ass instead of driving everyone nuts. Even if he messes up things, he simply can't do anything wrong.

While I inevitably mess up things as soon as I want to do something right.

When Bonnie didn't stop begging that I should save Caroline's life, I gave her my blood. Of course Katherine had to turn up and murder her, and the very next morning, the girl woke up as a vampire. Incredibly well done, Damon. And don't let me even begin with Jeremy, clingy pup that he is, despite the fact that I recently snapped his neck and ruined whatever it was Elena and I had.

That was the Damon who was my friend, she said, when I kept myself from killing Liz. Friendship's all she's willing to offer, but still that brief remark felt like some sort of olive branch. She loves Stefan – hell, doesn't everyone? But there was something... a small spark of warmth, perhaps. Something deep inside her inconveniently faithful heart, reaching out for me, the bad vampire, the evil brother, the prodigal son. Something that made me respond, and haven't I been in trouble ever since.

Being a vampire has its advantages, among them the ability of supernatural hearing. A great thing - at least as long as you can't help spying on Stefan's conversations with Elena, on their vows of eternal love, their childish attempts to plot against Katherine by putting up a fake fight and pseudo breakup.

Listening to them makes me the worst sort of voyeur, and the most disastrous side effect of the whole thing is that I can't even make fun of them anymore. The mocking, secretly dangerous court jester is a role I still know by heart and can perform in my sleep, but Stefan and Elena - they are everything but ridiculous. I would rather die a second time than to say it aloud, but I honestly admire them. How can they still be so innocent? If I still had a human heart, they'd break it with their stupid, sincere, desperate quest to take the right path, to protect those they love, to fight the good fight.

And as soon as I try to do the same, my noble attempt blows right up into my face.

Not that calling Katherine from Mason's cell phone was noble. Far from that. It was like throwing a gauntlet at the feet of the enemy, and she picked it up immediately. Stefan warned me... of course he did. And though I hate to admit it, he was right. But did I stop? No.

I was sailing far too high on the wind of my own violence, Mason's freshly spilled blood was still a heady perfume clouding my senses, and my own anger made me blind and careless. I wanted to hear the shock and disbelief in Katherine's voice, I wanted to be the one to strike first... and then she stroke back.

And now Elena storms through the entrance hall, and I can feel Stefan's raw agony right through the walls of the other room, a twin reflection of the pain in Elena's eyes. This time their breakup is no childish game anymore, and it is my fault again, for I put the dragon on edge and made her spit fire.

And all I can do now is to confess: I owe her the truth, even if it most certainly won't help me. I didn't lie to her when she asked me if I knew that Jeremy was wearing that ring before I strangled him – how can I lie to her now?

I want to make her stay, I want to undo the damage I've done while foolishly trying to take the right path and to fight the good fight (and I won't talk about whom I perchance might love, not even now). But I want to make her stay. For me. For Stefan. I don't care, as long as she doesn't leave, as long as there is the smallest chance that I might be able to put things to rights again.

"Katherine won," Elena whispers, face and voice like ash. And I swallow her name, helpless and defeated and proven wrong again, so utterly, utterly wrong.

Katherine's torn down the fortress those two created to protect their love, and it was me who handed her the hammer. All they tried was to survive in this crazy hick town, where the Founders kill to protect the citizens they keep in blissful ignorance, where clueless friends go to sleep wounded and wake up undead, where loved ones have to be brainwashed and mind-wiped to stay safe, and where they stab themselves if you turn away from your endless watch one second too long. In this town their fortress was all they had to keep their hopes up.

Hope never had a very high value for me. But for Stefan and Elena it had, and I can feel the first painful crack where once my heart used to beat, when I see the cold, empty hopelessness in Elena's face. I told her the truth, revealing my shame and stupidity. Did it change anything? Of course not. I should have known.

The door closes behind her and she is gone.

FINIS