A/N: - Hey guys. So my first fanfic in a long time, but I was watching a Damon fan video on YouTube and found the muse for this piece. It's snippets of Damon's thoughts over the entire series so far and contains spoilers for/references to:-

Pilot (1x01), Friday Night Bites (1x03), Miss Mystic Falls (1x19), The Descent (2x12), As I Lay Dying (2x22), The Reckoning (3x05) and Homecoming (3x09).

Reviews are love.

DISCLAIMER:- As much as I want to, I don't own the Vampire Diaries or any of its characters (from the books or TV series).

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest. - Ann Radcliffe

He feels like he might just burst a nerve in his head as he freezes in place, unable to move. All air has left his lungs and his eyes are bugging out, and the eternally handsome Damon Salvatore probably looks like the biggest idiot around, standing in the middle of a graveyard – a sunny graveyard for Christ's sake – and he's staring at the back of the brown head like it's a part of his imagination and it should be because it's Katherine – his Katherine- who's sitting there, writing in a journal like it's the thing to do. He finds himself gasping softly and his steel blue eyes melt and his throat closes up and he lets loose of control he has whatsoever, the fog swirling around them.

She seems scared and she's running, her shoes loud on crunching gravel but it's her – it's her – and when it seems like nothing can stop him from reaching out and just enclosing her in an embrace he can hear two voices which send his already broken universe spiraling again. Because she's scared and she's bleeding and she's speaking to Saint Stefan and because she has a heartbeat going thump,thump,thump which means she really isn't Katherine at all.

And so Damon wishes, just wishes, that she was the immortal queen he was so brokenly in love with instead of the pathetic, wounded human which she was.

He's blinking because no words can even begin to express how much compassion is swimming in those doe like eyes. I'm sorry about Katherine. You lost her too. Those words are etching themselves into his mind and soul because his whole life he's heard how people are sorry about his mother and about his brother and about his job and about his family and every, tiny, insignificant thing which doesn't matter to him at all. But nobody is ever sorry about his humanity, his feelings, his death and how annoyingly damaged he is from the simple lack of love and understanding and being second best.

But here she is seeing through him like his century old defenses are nothing but paper thin walls which she can easily tear down – it scares him that she has the power to – and see how much pain he is in. And he can feel a rare warmth spin through his veins, lacing his thoughts with gratitude and relief and he can only blink back because the words thank you just aren't enough.

And so Damon wishes, just wishes, he has a heart beat because apart from that insignificant detail, he feels as human as ever.

He think he might just do something stupid like run up the stairs and kiss her or take her in his arms but he stops himself by clasping his hands behind his back and wait patiently, watching this goddess walk down with her hair curled and her blue dress as she takes his hand. His memories scream Katherine as he ignores the stares and scandalous whispers at the brother but his heart and mind can only think Elena,Elena,Elena as he looks into her eyes and can only see his own wonder and awe being reflected back.

Her skin is soft under his fingers and it's not like wildfire like with her. Instead it's the warmest molten lava, crawling under his skin and shaking his very foundation as he twirls her around and he can see her lose herself in his arms and eyes. She is no longer shaking, as she had been, and he is no longer desperate, as he had been, and they just fit like two pieces of a jigsaw and he could stay like this forever. Except that concept is foreign to her and someone mentions his brother's name and her eyes snap, looking for him.

And so Damon wishes, just wishes, that one day when she looks at him she stops looking for any resemblance to his brother just like he has stopped looking at her and searching for any semblance to her doppelganger.

He thinks he can't breathe anymore, and he really can't, as he tries to focus on anything, look anywhere else and just ignore the fact that his chin is trembling, his eyes are burning and she's hugging him so tight, yet so softly like he's a fragile, cracked glass. He is shaking and she's holding him close, so close and he can only wonder in amazement as to why, why she had to meet his brother first because it isn't fair that he never even got a chance (even if he is living his chance right now). He wants to push or scream or cry or do anything, just send her away because his heart is bursting with pain and longing and she knows.

Oh she knows how hurt he is and he wants her to know what a monster he is but she just won't see it even if he drained her dry right now. He tries to pull away but she's hanging on like her life depends on it even though it won't be his arms she'll crave that night while he's out slaughtering or having sex with a take-away-on-legs but he can't let himself cherish this moment because he can't remember something if she'll forget it the moment she walks out.

And so Damon wishes, just wishes, he would find the courage to reach out and push her away because if he puts his arms around her, he thinks, no, knows, he will never let her go.

She's still hugging him close but this time, even though he has the courage to put an arm around her, he doesn't have the strength. The pure agony of venom in his body is inexplicable and he wishes he could die, that she would stare at him with hatred and just drive a freaking chair leg or a tiny pencil through his heart just to make it all go away. And he can't find it in himself to think that she is finally not letting go of him but all he can think of is the warm tears soaking his shirt and the arm around him and how her hair is tickling his sweaty neck. She says she won't leave but he knows she will when he's a corpse and she will put an arm around Stefan as they bury his body out of sight.

And then she's there, the one he thought was the love of his life and she's not letting go of him either and he wonders why they must decided now to hang on when he wants to just die and get it over with. They both clutch him with the oh so similar hands and hold him in place with the oh so similar gaze and he stares at them both, one living, but not alive and the other alive, but not living. And he can feel the magic of the cure working and it's not so agonizing anymore, until she asks about her boyfriend and the confession of Katherine's love for him is drowned out by the more piercing pain. Of course it was all out of pity and he pretends to still be hurting and curls up, licking his lips and trying to forget the kiss.

And so Damon wishes, just wishes that even if she isn't his and even though she says she does, that she really knows just how much he loves her.

Guilt, unimaginable, is running through him and he can think of nothing but a feeble promise not to leave her ever again. She is now merely a ghost, a pale imitation of the lively girl he never really knew but he knows she's buried there beneath the rubble of a broken heart and escaped sense of sanity. She is nodding and wiping her tears and he knows he should probably feel anger or burdened by the amount of twists their plotted lives have taken in one night but he can only selfishly feel lighter than ever.

Because she knows. She knows he loves her and she expects him not to leave but more than anything she needs him too. She needs him like she needs oxygen and he needs her like he needs blood and their messed up, tattered lives are finally threading together into a mass of confusing, albeit rewarding love and friendship, or understanding, as she says it. And he cannot forget how she asks him where he went and left her, or how she uttered his name in relief as he carried her home or how her eyes sought his when he brother barged in. Because she finally needs him like he needs her.

And so Damon wishes, just wishes, that now she loved him like he loves her.

He wants to cry. He's killed, he's shouted, he's hurt, he's attacked, he's humiliated and he's broken enough things and people for one night and now he just wants to curl up and cry. He wants to sink to his knees and he's not sure his unshed tears are of pain and loss or love and happiness. Because his brother has betrayed him and her and gone for good and she is here, in front of him cupping his face begging him to trust her and Katherine is on the phone, still owning him in a way he wishes she didn't. Damon Salvatore feels human and vulnerable and if it weren't so tragic it would be awfully hilarious how this century and a half year old is feeling like a reprimanded child, second best as always.

And he cuts the call and watches her leave, but not before she turns and looks in him in the eye, once again promising that they will survive, because they always do. And so he sits down in front of the fire, in front of the ruined Persian carpet and he can only stare into flames. He is tempted to touch them, even though it'll hurt like a bitch, but he just wants to feel anything other than the confusing tornado sweeping under his skin and wrecking his sanity.

Because his sole competition is gone, Katherine has disappeared and Elena won't leave him. No, Elena won't leave him, even though she has finally given up on his brother and because he finally, finally can let himself show just how much he cannot be without her. He wants to run around town screaming that she has let herself feel for him at last, he wants to take her in his arms and kiss her, really kiss her, and he wants to just sit here and let her find him and keep him company.

But he is not a fool, and she has fooled him once, and she won't again. Because there will be a day when he will come back and she will run back into his arms, and he will just be the best friend/monster again. Because he is Damon, who loves the edge but doesn't move from it, and there is Stefan who falls over it time and again, yet climbs back. Yet somehow he is the unstable one, while his brother is the one stuck in the vicious cycle. Yet the two women he will love forever will choose his brother, despite knowing that Damon is the one who is everything they want.

So, when she returns with a blanket and curls up beside him, he lets his arms snake around her a little tighter than normal and lets the kiss in her hair linger a little longer.

Because she is not his, and she will never be his and he will never be the one.

And so Damon doesn't wish he was human or that she knew how much he loved her or even that she would hug him back.

He just wishes, that when the time comes, she won't hurt him as much as Katherine did because no matter how much he doesn't search for his former love in her eyes, in the end, they're all just the same.