An: this was originally going to be posted as two seperate pieces but i decided differently. This was so freaking confusing. No the name of stefan's lover will never be revealed
The truth is, Damon Salvatore is pissed. And not for reasons you would think.
He's pissed at everyone, at the world, even at his bourbon.
sure he got Elena. He had his whole future planned out. They were gonna take the cure together. She would be a doctor, he would own the bar, And they would have two kids. Simple and Sweet. He told Stefan he would be the one to keep her alive, but not even a whole day after she took the cure, she fell into a supernatural slumber. All because he couldn't protect her.
So, pissed is an understatement
But you know who he's pissed most at? Stefan. His brother.
And not for reasons you would think.
Stefan would be able to protect Elena. More than damon ever would or ever could.
He always found her crying on his bed. Their bed. Whether it'd be over the fact that she didn't kiss Stefan when he had amnesia or he slept with Katherine and Rebekah. Stefan and Caroline kissed. Or that Stefan moved on and didn't love her like thatanymore.
He never asked why. He knew, he always knows. He's always known. Because as much as it pained him to admit it; Elena loved Stefan far more than she's ever loved him. Or even "liked" Caroline. More than she's ever loved anyone, for that matter. She's loved him unconditionally and irrevocably. Despite all the terrible things they'd both done. And Damon could never imagine loving somebody that much. Maybe that's why they split up after she became a vampire, maybe they loved each other too much for the sake of their sanity.
But you know what makes it worse. Stefan didn't move on to Caroline, like Damon and Elena. or anyone expected.
He moved on to a doppelganger. An "old love" technically. At first Damon and "the scooby gang" accused him of the fact that he's going to hurt her, that he's not over Elena and he's just using her to get over Elena.
Sometimes (okay, most of the time) he wished he has what Stefan and her have – the way their eyes light up in the most adorable way when they look at each other, the way their hands always seem to drift together like an invisible magnet to close the space between them.
Even if they were too scared to admit it at first.
But to Stefan and her... She's a doppelganger, He's a doppelganger. They're both doppelgangers. But labels don't matter. It never did. It was real and that was all that mattered.
They met in 1873 during one of his ripper binges, she snuck up on him made him feel things he never thought existed. And one day he turned it on like he flipped a light switch.(because of her). And to her, She was running from Klaus and the travelers, on the verge of turning it off and she came across and ripper feeding on it's prey. Then he snuck up on her and slowly entered her heart. She loves him with every part of her being, She realized. From outside to in, and other way around.
He may have been involved with Katherine before he met her and she was playing cat and mouse with one she met as a human. But that never mattered. It wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't that kind of love that you saw in the movies or read in the books. It was at times insane, twisted and obsessive but above all, it was real, it was true. Maybe that's why they say love's a weakness. Because when it's real, it drives you insane.
When she first died, he never bothered leaving the house, just crying all day and all night. And then, when the miraculous day that he did emerge from the cocoon that he enslaved himself in, he kind of went on a ripper binge.
But extraordinarily, he hadn't flipped the switch. Because he knew that if he did, then all his love for her would dissipate. But the blood "helped", as he used to claim. "For a few minutes, I just forgot. I forgot that I lost the love of my life. I forget that my life over. That I found my epic love and I lost her. But then it's over. And that's when the guilt comes in. But it never lasts too long because it's always overshadowed with grief. And then I do the same thing again. It's like a painkiller. I take it again and again before it destroys me," he told Damon once
But that's the problem with loving someone that much, how much pain it leaves you with when they leave you. Love is weakness, Damon constantly heard that throughout the years but never had he truly believed it until he saw the love his brother and the doppelgänger shared. Or he lost Elena to the unrequited love she and his brother shared.
People had always said "It had always been Stefan. And it would always be Stefan." But what about Stefan? What about what Stefan wants?
Life is a series of choices. Decisions we make mold us as people, make us the people we are now. Tessa once said 'Doppelgangers are a perfect example that our bodies are just suits that hold our personalities, which are what matters. We fall in love with what's within, not with the face."
"You don't love people because they deserve to be loved. You deserve to be loved by them because you love them."
When He brushed her hair back from her eyes every night and sees her, really sees her. She had come along with her deep brown eyes and her gorgeous smile and changed everything for Stefan. Everything
He never doubted he's spending eternity with the right girl, even years years later. He may have wanted Katherine originally (and elena, later) but he hit every milestone with her. The first kiss was after she kicked him in the shins for throwing a cake in her face on her birhtday, the first fight when she caught him drinking blood, the first time she saw her old doppelganger over holding another woman's hand, she feigned sick for the first time and came home. Minutes later, Stefan came with her favourite books and flavour of ice cream, and her favorite movie, and they spent the day in bed for the first time. The first best kiss was when they realized there is no one else. It's his hand she wants to hold everywhere, everywhere since she first learned what home really is, the hand she never wants to let go of.
Damon thought she would wake up after Bonnie died and they would spend the rest of their lives together as human. But after she saw his brother and a doppelganger... She cried and then left town, Told him that she didn't want to spend the rest of her human life with the wrong one. What she really means is him. He's the wrong one. He's not Stefan. And when she left town and told him and quote "I was too afraid to admit it but I'm in love with Stefan. I still am. And now that he has someone. I need to leave. Move on. I'm so sorry" And when she did Damon wakes up long enough for something inside him to die.