Previously on vampire diaries…
Stefan POV …
…This sort of impending doom requires back-up and risk and there's only one other person who I know will protect Elena as fiercely as I can.
I'm meeting Ric later tonight and after that I have a phone call to make…
One week since Stefan made the Phone call…
- CHAPTER 2 —
ALARIC POV
He's a mess.
He's out there dancing in the middle of the floor with two women grinding up against him and a bottle of bourbon hanging from his hand. It's a small out of the way bar in Atlanta that doesn't really have room to dance and yet here we are. Well there he is anyways. I'm right here at the bar drinking and watching this mess unfold out into the glory that is Damon Salvatore processing his feelings.
This will go well…
I've seen this continuous bender go the same way every time with few changes, all of them ending in some show of violence. The women always belong to somebody else, their partners inevitably show up and Damon relishes in the brawl that ensues. Mostly the men get to leave with their own free will intact although not necessarily conscious. Sometimes they leave compelled and telling ridiculous stories to the police and end up in prison - but that's only if Damon is feeling particularly petty. He's such an ass.
I suppose he could be a bigger ass and kill them all… I can't believe I'm actually considering that that is a huge step of character - the fact that he doesn't kill everybody. I could kill people too you know. I got some blood lust of my own to work with right now, but you don't see me out there in a sea of cleavage dancing like a gigolo.
It's been a while since Bonnie managed to subdue the killer in me and I still can't get used to the idea of drinking blood even when I crave it but I like to think I'm coping. I'm doing better than him. And if that is the bar that I am setting for myself I admit it's a low one but it's what I've got to work with so I'll take it. The bourbon helps too.
It's nice to know that even though it requires severe drinking to get the same buzz, it in no way endangers my liver. But so help me if there was a cure for vampirism I would take it and I seal that thought with a shot as I slam the empty glass back unto the bar. It smashes - I really need to watch my strength. Damon would be mildly helpful in that area if he wasn't the aforementioned mess that he is. What an ass.
I might actually be drunk. It's calming the tempting thoughts of blood quite well though. Not exactly hitting that spot but at least leaving the room pleasantly fuzzy. Damon and his partners are just gyrating shapes to me now. Thank goodness.
I've watched this whole 'will-they-won't-they' disaster practically from the beginning. I've seen little things stirring and becoming something else. I was the one who told him to take a beat on the whole Elena thing after all. I'm not exactly her guardian but I do care about her. She and Jeremy are practically family. What exactly are you meant to call the biological daughter of your vampire ex-wife who is also the niece of your deceased girlfriend? I've had too much alcohol to process that one…
I remember the night I was fighting Damon, not even aware I was close to killing my friend, just doing what I had been made for. I felt myself choking and out of the blue, a rush of water comes from my throat and never quite clears. I went down hard and Damon hung over me repeating "You can't be dead, you can't be dead." I knew who he was talking about. The relief on his face when I started to come around again lasted long enough for him to knock me unconscious. I woke up in the Salvatore cellar, chained and out of my head, with Bonnie on the other side of the door directing an incantation at me. It's a crazy world.
I call Damon over to the bar, hopefully if I can get through this conversation he will be too distracted to cause mayhem. He hears me and more surprisingly he abandons bump and grind on the sticky bar floor and slides into the seat beside me. He knows why i'm here of course, Stefan already made the call a week ago. He knows that he needs to come back to Mystic Falls on a more permanent basis. He showed up just in time to fight and then left again once everything was over. I'm pretty sure there was somebody who was looking to talk to him.
I'm not even sure if Elena even got to see him at all, she was trying pretty hard to show that it didn't bother her. Though I don't want to lump her into the same category as Damon I'm fairly sure they're both idiots.
He drinks the last of his bourbon straight from the bottle and I can tell that he is really far gone tonight. He looks pissed and dangerous, which is Damon code for hurt but really isn't going to help you out much when he rips you apart. I'm not worried for myself but the rest of the clientele should probably clear out. One of the dancing women approaches us and I 'suggest' she takes her friend and goes home. Not surprisingly she listens to me. Compulsion saves the day.
Damon looks mildly impressed at me and it seems to have dropped the flare that was glowering on his face. This is where the words are meant to come and so I take another shot and let them flow.
"You're an ass."
RIC POV CONT'D
"You're an ass."
"Yes, well… I'm me. And also I'm a little day drunk. Apparently that's not my most attractive look."
Having finished his bottle he is now spinning it lazily on the bar counter top, nothing good brewing in his mind. I stop the continuous wearing noise before Damon can make a suggestion for 'live or die' - his own version of Russian Roulette with the other drunks in this dive.
He smirks and lets me take it away from him while I push a shot from my own collection in his direction. "Well now that I know you're not here for the good times Ric why don't you tell me why you have arrived in this, my sunny side of hell?"
I wait until he swallows the shot before answering. "She misses you."
"Oh yeah? Well people who make choices need to deal with the consequences. The rest of us are. I warned her about making decisions but she always insists in doing it."
"Yes, because your decisions are a work of genius."
He slams the glass down hard on the table breaking it - "My decisions didn't get her almost dead."
"No, no of course not. Your past decisions have only included killing her brother, forcing your blood down her throat and sleeping with Rebecca Michelson, to name a few! Rebecca Michelson! Now that was crazy even for you. Andy, I could understand…"
His demeanour calms slightly, "While I normally consider that hot trumps weird, you are right. Rebecca was not the smartest revenge sex i've ever had."
"You've had smart revenge sex?" At last he looks at me with something like a flicker of a smirk and now I know I might have a chance at him hearing me out. He senses this change in the atmosphere and droops back down into his chair leaning heavy on the bar. Here goes.
"You need to come back."
He actually sighs, "Trust me Ric, she doesn't want me back."
I roll my eyes and he interrupts me, "Then trust me when I say, I don't want to go back."
"Well that's just lies. Where is Damon Salvatore bringer of bare faced truth?"
"He's a liar. Always has been." He steals another shot from my bottle.
"I was gonna say he's scared." He turns fierce blue eyes on me then, lifting out of his seat and getting right in my face and I could be dead if I wasn't already. But we've been down that road together before, it just never works out.
"She is the one who's scared… I'm not getting into this with you."
"Yes, well you came home for all of one night and didn't get into any of this with her either so now here I am trying to get through to one of you. I was actually thinking she would be the reasonable one but so far this is more than I got out of her!"
He stands there a little unsure where to go with this information so I continue before he gets direction. "If you think you're doing all this for her then you're doing a lousy job of it. Of this… whatever the hell you're doing out here, instead of being back in Mystic Falls. You're Miserable."
"You're not looking so chipper yourself Ric."
"Yeah well, like I said my buddy's an ass."
We stare each other out for a moment before he finally speaks. "I said I would stay away I didn't say it would make me happy. I don't want to do this Ric, I'm not the good guy remember? I'm the selfish one. I take what I want, I do what I want. I lie to my brother, I fall in love with his girl, I don't do the right thing! But I have to do the right thing by her."
"What happens when it's not the right thing anymore? What happens when trouble comes and you're not close enough to save her? What happens when you're just another person that she has lost from her life? Cause that's happening right now buddy."
I Grab him by the shoulders and look him dead in the eye.
"Stop moping around here pretending like your switch is off so you don't have to deal with the fact that what you feel for her is real."
The wounded look pulls back leaving his eyes dark and cold as he yanks himself out of my grasp and storms out of the bar.
Well that went well.
Sorry for my vagueness on how Ric is in his right mind by Bonnie simply doing magic. But we're rolling with it cause why not? Bonnie still had her magic at the start of season 4 although she used it to put Klaus back in his own body and out of Tylers and apparently that pissed of the dead witches and they kinda took her mojo... Unfortunately that was too much story for this humble novice to untangle... and also, I may have written this chapter before I was reminded of that scene. Plus I love nice Alaric, the crazy Alaric would mess up this story. In short I'm all for a bit of vague magic. :D