title: life is simple in the moonlight
summary: people on the outside saw someone who was broken long ago.
notes: based off an episode or two ago, when damon and alaric have that conversation about the people damon cared for, or his list, or whatever. another typical damon moment, it was.
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People on the outside saw someone who was broken a long time ago, someone incapable of loving again. Someone with sharp blue eyes and a mocking smile, someone clearly aged with bad experiences.
Elena knew firsthand that was not true in the least.
.
She stood there with bleary eyes and an oversized sleeping shirt, perched on the stairs, looking down at him in the living room. He met her eyes and immediately stood, concern spread clear across his face.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, eyes flicking across her body, not even noticing the lace of her underwear that peeked out from the rumpled shirt. Instead he was focused on the long bruise across her thigh and the cut trialing down her neck.
She just stood there on the third step, eyes trying to focusing on his face through the haze of her disrupted thoughts, tried to capture the way he looked at her, the way he moved his hands to keep them from trembling, curling his fingers in slightly and then out again.
She had almost died last night.
Finally, he was given a strained smile and a small shrug.
And his breathing eased up, if only just, eyes never leaving hers.
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Hidden behind the door, she listened to the rustling of papers and the hushed curse words in the next room. It was well into the night, but she had been awakened by the shattering of something on the floor below her.
She had taken to staying at his house ever since the accident which she dared not relive in her mind. And since then she had discovered how much Damon had to hide.
Finally, she decided to take a seat, sliding down in her nightclothes against the wooden door to one of the studies. Sleeping was out of the question, and anyway, she wanted to make sure things were right with him.
"God, Stefan," came the voice, and Elena froze. She had already been surprised Damon hadn't noticed her presence, but by the intensity of the pain in his voice and the endless sounds of papers and books, she began to rethink it.
She wanted to leave, but she couldn't. She didn't want to hear his name, feared she might hear her name in the mess Damon was addressing.
"… never would have guessed…" And his voice became a murmur and something else thudded against the wall or maybe the ground. She needed to leave. She needed to leave, now, as soon as she could before –
"… and as much as it kills to say it, I'd rather have you here, with her, than not here at all..."
And it hurt her to hear that, but it also made sense. He missed her brother, and the guilt was still underlying in his pained tone.
Another slam, the sound of a glass firmly placed on the table.
He'd taken to drinking more at night, she noticed, as opposed to in front of her during the day.
He'd quieted now, and she thought he may have heard her. She stood silently and escaped into the darkness, taking the stairs with ballerina tiptoes.
Only when she remembered the choked sound did she realize he might have been crying.
.
He may not care what happened to a passerby caught in the collateral damage of an attack. He may not even care that much about one of her friends.
But for those he did care for, they were always in his best interests.
Though the list was few, that just meant all the more passion for those people.