The beauty of dying.

The sun crept over the horizon tantalizingly slow, orange hazing into hot yellow and blending into the dark navy-turning it slowly into azure before flinging the darkness completely away and uncovering the baby-blue of the morning sky.

The beauty of dying...

She was a beauty all on her own. I appreciated aesthetics like any man, maybe more so... I loved refined, whimsical and silhouetted beauties with an obsessive yet intricate addiction. But her aesthetics had been found first in Katherine, had they not? But still when I saw her that second time, wandering a road and worrying about such trivial teenage nonsense... she had knocked my breath away.

A beauty in living...

A beauty in death...

This was what encompassed both Elena and Katherine in my mind but it was in my soul that the love I had for both women got distinct and convoluted.

She had been the one to grab my eye and heart. She had been the one to break me into a boy-fighting for the utmost prize carelessly and willingly allowing her to thrum my heart mercilessly with small fingers and play a happy tune while I bled. That had been Katherine...

And Elena... sweet Elena had grabbed my eye with her perfectly sketched resemblance to Katherine but when I looked into her eyes-each time I looked into them-there was something so sweet and pure in her that made me feel completely damned and unworthy to stand in front of her. Never because she said I was unworthy of such a love that she contained, but always because she wanted me to become worthy for her to give it freely...

Always because she wanted me to be a noble man and step out of my reckless impulsiveness, always because she didn't want to be the prize but the antidote and mostly because she sang to my heart to lull it into complacent willingness to sing back to her. Elena...

That had been her, and now she was gone...

Such a beautiful morning... the sun rising slowly and the glint of my ring in its rays blinking momentarily as I raise it to the giant star. It's cool between my fingers and I stare at it sadly... this would be all that is left in the end.

Attempt at invisibility in the eye of the sun.

It hurts at first and I cringe. I know pain, I know it so well... it's what encompasses being a vampire... the phone is insistent in my pocket but the last words I hold in my breath I want to whisper them to her when I meet her briefly in the darkness. I know I wont be were she is... I will be somewhere far and burning... burning... the sun crackles my skin...

I will be somewhere far and burning but it would be worth it if only to tell her my last words. Words that I knew she wanted to hear from him, but maybe she would accept me as a substitute in those brief seconds...

When he came, because he would-Stefan wouldn't remain for long after she was gone and I was gone too-when he came, I had no doubt he would be accepted in the same place as her.

It's almost over, the phone is ringing and I am moaning her name in pain and anticipation. Red and white are the colour of burning, if anyone ever wondered... and the colour of peace would be...

"You can't even let me die in peace!" I growl into the receiver.

"She is alive"

"What?" the ring slips over my burning finger and the sun doesn't rain fire down on me anymore.

"Elena" Bonnie says detached "She is alive... a vampire"

Even in without a beating heart, she found a way to save the ones she loved. And as I stood up from the hot road, flinching with every movement that made my skin crack... and the hollow darkness in my heart didn't abate at the news-I realised that she had only saved my body this time. The ring was on but my heart and soul continued to burn with an intensity that would never match the one they had been under when belonging to Katherine. She wanted me noble, she wanted me good... but she didn't want me.

I would never be worthy...

It would always be Stefan and I would always be destined for hell.

Xx~xx~xX

Maybe I was really a coward underneath it all.

The worst kind of coward; the one that attempts to be the hero and disappoints every one at the end of the battle by running of. Hero... when I was human maybe, then I could utter that single word with conviction. Funny how being more indestructible than a human has turned the word on it's head in my psyche. Surely now I should be the valiant knight...

The valiant knight with enough balls to take his own life; that would be the greatest form of bravery and compassion I could do for this world because if I remained breathing over this earth...

If I remained on this earth, I would turn into a monster. Okay, a worse monster...

I could feel it as I walked over the hard gravel, the tar roughage scraping the underneath of my boots.It's been an hour since I kneeled before the sun and raised the ring in the air-her face pulled to the forefront of my vision. It's been an hour since Bonnie Bennett inadvertently saved my life, Elena in her own adamant way rescuing me from certain hell in my death to walk in this living version of damnation...

A worse monster...

I knew about heartbreak; Katherine had turned me into a well educated student under it but Elena...

It's hot, the sun is behind me but the heat warms my back uncomfortably. I am walking steadily over the road, right by the edge and not bothering to look up. I know I am returning to her, I need to know for certain... subconscious and lucidly-Mystic Falls is were I will end up.

A worse monster under the heartbreak of Elena.

That's what happens when you set your redemption in the eyes of your brother's girlfriend I guess...

I could just as easily switch it off but it's different this time. Fissuring and bubbling pain inside of me, prickling acidic poison of a intense love that will never be enough, realisation that you were put on this earth with no purpose save to set in motion someone else's happy ending... this is how a bomb feels before it explodes, but even a bomb has a purpose. If I exploded, the world will blink and carry on...

Switching it off will never be the same because this time I had no reason to turn it back on. Elena and Stefan had been my reasons but the unveiling that I would never be the reason for them... switching it off would be permanent and have no antidote.

My entire grandiose swagger is shed; all my hidden pathetic vulnerability is left bare and ripe for the picking. I was better of keeping it off, I was better of never telling her... but I guess the truth would have always been just beneath the surface.

Mystic Falls were my untouchable redemption awaits with a dead heart and room for only Stefan-I just needed to see her. I couldn't deny that, I couldn't walk away from it-I was compelled.

I would see her-just to know she survived past death. I would see her, I would find the man I was once before Katherine and reach into that bravery and end the war a hero.

Xx~xx~xX

The room is clear and clean. The curtains drawn and letting in the soft breeze of the outside garden, the aroma of pansies and grass wafting freely though and the sunlight casting everything in a golden glow. It's the perfect little corner in the house...

Away from ancient memories that evoke wild thoughts...

"Damon"

"Now is not really the time Witchy" I sigh, gulping down some lingering emotions with my whisky.

"She didn't know..." Bonnie says her voice rough and then goes into full blown teenage angst mode-it was easy to forget this little fact "She had no way of knowing. The blood was... when she went to the hospital and..."
"Yeah, Ricks busy-body girlfriend" I snap "I know. She is saved, that's what matters right"
"Right" Bonnie sighs not getting the message that I wanted to be alone and walking into my peripheral. "I thought it might be like with my mum..."
"I don't really want to bring and share, Bonnie" I groan "In less than twenty-four hours I found out I would never have a chance at love thanks to being the loveable Stefan's evil brother, she chose him... it was always him and then she died and then she lived and... I have nothing"
"Damon"
"I don't want to fucking bring and share, Bonnie now either offer some witchy blood because I am kind of peckish or go do some voodoo somewhere else"

"Will you leave?" she asks moving towards the door.

"That's what everyone wants, in the end" I whisper "For me to leave"
"Stay a while" she breathed "The town... with everything, please stay a while. Too much change..."
"You are all about wanting me gone" I murmur in confusion.

"Yeah, well..." she grumbled "You haven't gone to see her and you are here... and there is too much change happening too fast. Maybe if we just kept things a little stagnant for a brief time?"
"Maybe for a brief time" I sigh "You came to guilt me into seeing her... she sent you..."
"It doesn't matter" Bonnie said leaving the room "I mean it"

Xx~xx~xX

AUTHORS NOTE:

Yeah, this is going to be angsty. Hold on...

uh, anonymous guest: this is set after it is hinted that Elena died with vampire blood in her system. Right in that moment. And in Vampire Diaries, Damon is only ever inlove with Katherine and Elena... I can't just randomly begin with him falling for Bonnie with no explanation of how that happened. It has to lead to it so it can be a real sort of love, right.

Sigh.