Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries, nor do I own the song 'Pieces' by Sum41 (not even the small reference to Nelly Furtado or Ron Weasley); if I did, Delena would be a reality, which it isn't, unfortunately, so you can't sue me. Unless somewhere in the future they do end up together, but that would just make me a good fortune teller (and a very happy fangirl!).

A/N: SPOILERS! This was written after 2x11! (so nothing about 2x12 or further episodes, though I have seen them)

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-ON MY OWN-

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They say I'm not capable of trust and that no one can count on me.

I put my faith in my brother. He repaid me with betrayal.

They also claim that everything I do, I do for myself and myself only.

I would risk and have risked my miserable undead life to save her, because I wanted her – I wanted her for me, and she ran into his welcoming arms.

And they say I love me – just me.

It took me a while to notice, but I figured out that the emotions I felt towards her were those of love. I loved her – no, love her. And because of that, I have to let her go.

I say they don't know.

I tried to be perfect
But nothing was worth it
I don't believe it makes me real

Humanity these days is highly overrated. You live, you die; you are part of the cycle that God or some other higher being imposed on you and you are confined within a time span of an average 80 years; you grow old and senile and get children who think of you as senile even though you aren't; and you die unhappy and remorseful because there were so many things you didn't do in that short 80 year period of time.

I remember how everything was perfect and simple back in the days when I was still human, over 145 years ago. I mean, sure, I was infatuated with a vampire, and sure, she fancied both me and my brother and practically used me as a sex toy, but I could handle that. Simple.

I was the good brother back then; I did what my father wanted me to do, even though I knew he had always favoured Stefan (because for some reason Stefan was more honourable than me), I loved my family dearly, and I had a good relationship with my brother, even though I knew that the love of my life preferred him over me as well, no matter what I did to make her see I was just as eligible as him.

I was good. Incredibly naive of course, but good.

And then I asked him to promise me he wouldn't betray me – I asked him to preserve Katherine's safety – and he didn't. They took her away from me like she was some prisoner, in a way very unbecoming of her personality and status, and my perfect world crumbled. It was the one thing I asked of him out of the brotherly bond he and I shared and he couldn't do it. He and my father both, traitors of trust.

I learnt a hard lesson that day: perfection, no matter how well masked, will one day reveal itself to have never been more than a false reality.

I thought it'd be easy
But no one believes me
I meant all the things I said

I swore to set her free after that – just as much as I swore to hate brother dearest for eternity, no pun intended – it was that uncomplicated. I would pull a knight in shining armour move that she never would've wanted and we would be reunited once more, like the sappy love stories I would never admit to reading. Everything would be all right, just as easy as that.

But for some reason, Stefan didn't seem to think as optimistically as me; a fact that only enhanced my fury and determination. I didn't need him. I never needed him.

He worried about me of course – worrisome as he is – about my well-being that took a spiralling leap into the abyss of evil while he was left alone standing on the edge, watching me plummet with his creased face full of trademark brooding frowns. I didn't care; he didn't understand. So we drifted apart, only meeting once a decade or so to remind him that I was still walking the earth freely, searching for a way to release her from her binds and making his life a living hell.

And I had no intention of quitting my multifaceted mission.

If you believe it's in my soul
I'd say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show
That I'm trying to let you know

He met a girl that year. A girl who resembled my Katherine perfectly for some unknown reason, but at the same time differed so much from her that it was ironic to see. She worried endlessly whereas Katherine was as careless as they come, she was weak where Katherine was immensely strong, and yet they looked like two drops of water, identical to the smallest birth mark.

I scoffed at his behaviour; another fake statement thrown my way, why not. "Oh, I'm completely over her, Damon. You can have her, it's no biggie. Yet I choose to suffer endlessly and fall in love with a doppelgänger of hers."

Yeah... Something just didn't add up in that equation.

Still, as long as I had the real deal and he had that Elena girl, I didn't complain. Though I must admit that I kind of liked her; weak as she might be, she had spunk.

And then I finally found a witch who could help me. Finally, after 145 years of searching, I had found a way to set her free and I was so high on anticipation from the closeness of her that I could almost taste her luscious presence.

I opened the tomb.

She wasn't in it.

She never was.

She was running free with no one to stop her from seeing me except her own will.

And I cracked.

"It's always going to be Stefan."

I was always going to be second choice, and I can't even begin to fathom whatever possessed me to think it would be any different this time around. Time maybe? 145 years should bring about some change, right? I don't know; the truth blotted out a lot of my seemingly valid reasons.

The only thing I do remember is that I had been clinging onto that small shimmer of love as if it were a lifeline for over a fucking century – or what I believed was love – and that it vaporised just like that. All other thoughts were unimportant in comparison.

And that knowledge coursed through me like feverish poison, causing a myriad of feelings to flood my mind in response: I wanted to tell her that I was right for her, I wanted to throw her against the wall and drive a stake through her heart, I wanted to kiss her until my lips were swollen and blood sprung from the bites she inflicted on me, I wanted to make her suffer by taking away the thing she held most dear – her freedom, and I wanted to hear her say that it was a sick joke she had been playing on my mind all along but that everything was okay now. She always did have a sadistic sense of humour, and we would just laugh about it after our intense make-up sex session.

I did none of the above.

First because she wasn't anywhere near me so it was technically impossible, and second, because she was no better than anyone else I put my faith in, for whom I made myself vulnerable. She was a lying bitch that betrayed me more than anyone ever could and even jumped over the abominable brother on top of my hate list. (Though he might not be as abominable as I thought he was, and we had been warming up to each other lately. Heck, he had even helped me get into that tomb – that empty tomb.)

I lost myself.

And the worst part was that after all she put me through, after all her inconsiderateness of my feelings and after the truth, I knew that she would always have power over me, over my feelings of old that would never fully disappear. I couldn't deny that she would always have an impact on me. And that's what I hated about her the most.

I realised once more that I had been living a lie, the biggest one to date in my miserable existence; that I had lost myself... trying to keep me from losing her.

That I'm better off on my own

This place is so empty
My thoughts are so tempting
I don't know how it got so bad

"Thank God for vampire switches and bourbon" would be quite the understatement, wouldn't it? Because seriously, they've been lifesavers. They can magically drown out the most unbearable emotions to an extent that is liveable, they can make me so numb that I forget – that I don't care anymore about anything – and can even create a near sense of relief.

But as with all good things that come my way, there was a downside to it: the more I tried to forget, the less human I became. I knew I was, but I willingly chose not to act on it.

Unlike my brother; the brother who eats bunnies instead of spilling innocent human blood, who chooses for the misery to accompany him daily so that he would remain as much in touch with his inner human as possible, and who eventually got over Katherine by shoving it off as a compelling move on her side. We might as well nickname him vampire Mother Theresa, or Saint Stefan. (I have always been a sucker for alliterations so I personally favoured the latter.)

And then there was me of course: the bad brother.

I always have been the bad one since I turned – since Stefan turned me, that hypocrite bastard – and I've never had any problems with that title; it grants me so many evil things that I'd never wanted to do were I still human but that prove to be quite common in my afterlife. It doesn't come as a surprise for example when I go hunting in a bar for tasty human blood in order to kill some of the pain and misery that are lurking in the back of my mind, making me angry with myself. It allows me to push away everything and everyone that ever showed any compassion because Damon is just bad seed.

Damon is evil, Damon harms people willingly and for the fun of it, Damon cannot be trusted.

Nobody cares about Damon; not his brother, not his vampire love interest, not anyone – except maybe that new girl. But that's okay; not caring means not getting hurt in the process, a point proven to be correct on too many occasions already.

I do have some good inside of me though. Somewhere deep, deep down. And I suspect my beloved brother knows about it – fooling him had always been rather tricky, despite my high level of intelligence – and he's made it painstakingly obvious that he still hopes for it to surface.

But as long as he doesn't openly expose it, I keep up my reputation I built up so well – the easy reputation that keeps in the truth – simply because I don't think I can take it to care again, which I suspect Stefan knows as well.

Sometimes it's so crazy
That nothing can save me
But it's the only thing that I have

Sometimes I regret the actions that my vampire nature makes me do. Or that I willingly do, because I don't believe that after all these years I have no control over myself. Whatever the cause though, it's undeniable that the rage is there, the current of anger just below the surface that floods occasionally and makes me want to kill unimportant people.

And somehow, those nobodies practically all have something to do with Elena. Small town disadvantage, I suppose.

When I kill someone she knows or even cares about deeply, not even the switches can drown out the guilt that courses through me.

It's weird; I never really cared before. But there's something about Elena that makes my humanity shine through way more often than I'd like to or would even care to admit. A power that is very strong, even stronger than vampire compulsion, and that makes her strong: her honesty, her innocence. It is so pure that I don't even think about tainting it; it blinds me.

So I do the next best thing I know: I snap, I cover it up.

I'm not used to feeling human anymore, something I reckon time does to a vampire. After all, our kind is usually very isolated in everything we do; in living, in loving, in being. Why would one want to be human again anyway? To feel? To feel miserable, unhappy and unloved? To experience all of that again? Well not me, no thanks.

So despite my errors – errors that feel worse than the usual errors I commit – I keep up what I've been doing for a long time now: I run away from it all, I kill it with all my willpower. Because it's all I've known for so long; it's a certainty in life that I can count on being constant. No risk of betrayal, no risk of going away, no risk of anything. Constant.

If you believe it's in my soul
I'd say all the words that I know
Just to see if it would show
That I'm trying to let you know

Elena.

Elena, Elena, Elena.

I couldn't stop thinking about her. It was as if I had gone back in time and Katherine was enchanting my dreams and mind again. Except that Elena wasn't responsible for influencing my mind; she had no compelling powers like Katherine. Well, she was responsible, but that was only because she was being herself.

Elena.

I agree, she didn't want much with me in the beginning, taking the bad versus good brother relationship for granted as well and despising me for making her beloved Stefan suffer; nor did I think much of her either, focussing all my attention on my grand master plan that was doomed to fail. But somewhere between trying to kill Stefan and being on the verge of being killed myself, things changed.

I don't know if it was me or her that changed, but for some reason, we liked each other. She liked me as a friend that she could trust in – to an extent – and I liked her for her. I was intrigued by her, I wanted to know her connection to Katherine, and I wanted to get to know her. And what's even weirder, I wanted her to get to know me, to get to know me past the façade I put up for everyone.

Needless to say, it scared the hell out of me.

Even the likeness in itself was strange. Perhaps because I had forgotten how to like people, or perhaps because it wasn't exactly the right word to describe us. Maybe trust, or hate, or love suit our relationship better, or a combination of the three. Maybe it was merely a matter of peaked interest. Or disgust on her side, intrigue on mine. Or explosive chemistry, a heavy attraction that had yet to be defined. Or maybe I just wanted my misery to have some company.

I don't know. It was something.

She had this spark in her; she was fun to be around without having to compel her to do things my way. It was… nice.

And my thick shell was wavering under her nice influence. First sporadically, so that it took me by surprise and I could notice it and act accordingly (i.e. make my reputation walls even fiercer), but the more time I spent with her, the less I noticed her getting through to me, and the more I was starting to look like my old human self. I hated as well as wanted it at the same time.

We finally chose to go by the label of "friends". Again, a term that has yet to be defined in more detail.

And things were going peachy with me; it even looked like I had forgotten all about Katherine and had a purpose again, a purpose called Elena.

But me of all beings knows that all good things come to an end. I didn't need Nelly to tell me that.

What I did need was to make her see the truth, because I was sure that my feelings were mutual, and mostly because I couldn't take it anymore. I needed her.

So I kissed her.

She kissed me back.

Joy to the world!

But then it turned out it was only Katherine. Of course it was only Katherine; she always found some way to make my life harder than it was. It was okay though, apart from the initial misery at being misled for something so important, I was convinced she would kiss me back as well.

So when I couldn't take it anymore – the not-knowing – I kissed her.

And she pushed me away.

"I care about you Damon, really, I do, but I love Stefan."

She didn't know about the déjà vu those bittersweet words invoked in me. She didn't know that I was cursing Murphy for making me his scapegoat – again. She didn't know how much that simple sentence hurt. She was just being honest with me, because that was how she was.

And what did I do? I snapped her brother's neck, because that's how I am: an enraged vampire when being denied the thing he wants most.

I guess I shouldn't have done that. I knew I shouldn't have from the moment she cradled Jeremy's weird-angled head and sent hateful daggers at me, as if she genuinely wanted me dead. She'd never looked at me like that before. And my actions sure as hell didn't make the complexity of our weird relationship any less complicated. On the contrary, they made it shatter.

"You have lost me forever."

The difference with losing Katherine was that I was the one at fault now, and I felt like I had to make it up to her instead of trying to forget. I had become addicted to her as if she was my new bourbon, a better brand that instead of numbing my humanity made it stronger in a positive way. And I'd lost her. I'd fucking lost her.

Like hell.

I took an arrow to the back for her, I showed her all the humanity in me that I could muster, I practically begged her to reconsider us – I didn't even care anymore if she wanted me like I wanted her – I came to her rescue when she had been kidnapped, I came to her rescue when she wanted to sacrifice herself. I needed her.

And in time, we got better. Tiptoeing carefully around each other, but still, tiptoeing in each other's presence.

Stefan would always be the one. He didn't do rash things like I did, he was someone to count on, and he was who Elena wanted. Losing her made me see that I wanted her in my life – a fact I already knew – but that I didn't want her against her will in it. I wanted it to be real, I wanted her to be herself, I wanted her to be happy. And losing her made me realise the most important thing about it all: I wanted her to be happy... even if that person she was happy with wasn't me.

That I'm better off on my own

I tried to be perfect
It just wasn't worth it
Nothing could ever be so wrong
It's hard to believe me
It never gets easy
I guess I knew that all along

Immortality is highly overrated as well, you know. You die, you keep on living for who knows how long; you have plenty of time on your hands and you're bound to hold grudges for decades if not centuries; you grow bitter and are alone with your thoughts; you practically have nothing left to live for because mortals actually have a restrained time span to obey; and it basically just sucks when you have to go through it alone.

I tried to be the perfect human; kind, caring, gullible (not that that makes people perfect, but I consider it to be part of my human life), and many things more.

I tried to be the perfect vampire; vicious, cruel, uncaring, and hateful – one could even say Katherine-ish.

Neither worked for me.

Neither was easy.

Neither was right.

I'm stuck in a twilight zone where I want and don't want to be human, and where I want and don't want to be a vampire. I'm built up with pieces of good and evil, love and hate, and right and wrong. I'm stuck inside myself, with no one to help me get out.

But I'm used to it somehow; I'm used to being me, the good parts and the bad. And I know who I am, who I always have been and who I always will be.

I am Damon Salvatore.

And don't you forget it.

A/N: (warning for length and rambling)

1/This was a songfic challenge I made up for me and my friend: just write a songfic about anything. I know, that isn't much of a challenge, but it was still fun to do. Especially since I never wrote for TVD before and when I heard this song I immediately thought of Damon. And since he is my favourite character in the show, I really wanted to make a sort of tribute to him by writing him a sad character study.

2/Btw, I didn't want to include Rose, because that would've made it too complicated. And for the record (like I already said) I wrote this before 2x12 so if it doesn't completely add up to Damon's all-revealing statement, it's normal :) (I did consider revising it, but my laziness stopped me)

3/I hope you liked it! Although it turned out way longer than I thought (even the A/N) but I wanted to include so many aspects of his personality that it was impossible to write less. So congratz if you read it all the way to the end ;) And if you did like it, please review to tell me that (otherwise I have no idea whether you liked it or not), and it would do me great pleasure if you could also tell me what part you liked most (whii for the "I am Damon Salvatore" part :D).

5/Many thanks to IsisIsabella for beta-reading this!

4/I will post the link to my friend's songfic here sometime today or tomorrow in case you wanted to check it out. Please do, he's new at writing ffn :)

-x-