March 2020

It's a cool spring morning, with the sun not yet risen, when Damon wakes to find Alaric standing by the window, looking out, with his shoulders hunched over; and whether it's the hunched shoulders, or the fact that Alaric is still as a monument, still as a stone, not breathing, Damon knows the time has come.

Damon blinks for a few moments, and begins to breathe himself. Alaric turns, then, hearing the minute shifts. He meets Damon's eyes, nods once, and turns back to the window.

"Ric?"

"Yeah." It's good, speaking. You have to breathe to speak and it makes the world make sense, breathing. Makes you feels connected.

"What are you doing?"

Alaric shakes his head. "Nothing."

"Come back to bed, then," Damon purrs. "We'll think of something."

Once that expression settles in, distraction is best, followed by working shit out; they'll do it, in that order. Plus, bonus, the kind of distraction Damon has in mind tends to incite a lot of heavy breathing, so there's that.


1879

Damon remembers very little about 1879. Almost nothing of what was going on in the world, anyway. He was living in a rooming-house in North Carolina, in Charlotte. He hadn't touched a woman or a man except to drink from them since his death (heart claimed by Katherine, and not yet able to distinguish heart from body).

He killed, many times over, not for any particular reason. He hadn't thought, much, yet, about what it meant to do so; just, he sometimes killed when he drank and he sometimes didn't.

That wasn't new. It wasn't new in 1878 or 1877, either; it hadn't been new since 1864. What was new was the disgust.

A live human body is unmistakably alive. It moves under your hand, minute twitches of nerves and muscle, even the fine body hair that bristles; so it is not possible to mistake the moment when a live body becomes a dead one, when the last glimmer of hope leaves a human's eyes. Even compelled to submit, they have that glimmer.

And so it was very early one spring morning, not unlike this one in 2020, that Damon Salvatore watched the light leave a young man's eyes, and finally… reacted.

He hadn't known it was possible, for a vampire to feel physically sick. He felt sick that morning. The thing he was holding – not a man, not then, just a thing, a slab of meat and bone and hair and cartilage, organs and connective tissue, fingernails and toenails, intestines, and suddenly so heavy – slipped to the ground, out of Damon's hands, and he backed away sharply.

His eyes tripped down the alley in both directions.

No one had seen. They were tucked away out of sight, and the sun, though not far from rising, hadn't shown itself; barely a ray penetrated the gloom. The young man no doubt thought, until the moment he died, that he was going to feel Damon's lips against his throat, not his fangs. He'd had the cautious, hopeful look Damon could always readily identify when looking for a meal. A woman would always scream; a man was so afraid he would be seen for what he was, in a dark alley with another man's mouth against his throat, that he was often almost dead before he could even acknowledge what was happening to him.

Why it was, that this one was different, Damon didn't know then; and the memory is fuzzy even now. He remembers he crouched at the man's side, unsure of why he was doing it, and turned the man's face until he could really see it.

Just a face; handsome, but no more so than his last meal, a couple of days back, or the prostitute Damon had left dying in her own room a week before. Strong, but not particularly; shorter than Damon. Neither rich nor poor and he hadn't had a talent for rhetoric, either. He had felt Damon's eyes on him, across a certain square in town, and at that time of the morning, there was only one thing eyes like that could mean. He didn't need rhetoric. He only needed to smile back, and the agenda was set.

He'd been wrong about the agenda. And his smile was long gone.

It was the stillness that really got to Damon. And the stillness was reflected in Damon himself, in his absence of breath. Damon backed away, fast. Walked quickly (breathing, deliberately) to the rooming-house he'd been living in to pack his one case and decide what to do.

That was Damon's last day in North Carolina; he began to travel west. Felt as though the smell of the young man's death was clinging to his hair and clothes. Everywhere Damon went, he was used to the weight of approving eyes on him, but now, he had begun to feel as if they could see further. Like blood stained his face or his fangs wouldn't retract.

For a week, more, Damon didn't feed. Perhaps nine days. The night he fed, he was so hungry, so hungry. Helpless against his appetite. He fell upon a lady and her husband and drained them both. Dragged them behind a tree and sat for more than an hour with their still bodies. Damon half-hoped he'd be discovered by some wayward preacher with a glimmer of rage in his eyes and a stake in his hand.

He hadn't been caught.

He had walked back into the town square and found a public house. By the smell of the whores there, it wasn't the nicest, but Damon only wanted alcohol. He didn't even care what was in his glass, as long as it burned on the way down.

Two days later, Damon had carefully drawn about a pint of blood from a young man's wrist, and sent him away healthy. Somehow, the gentler act made him feel a little better.


March 2020

Alaric blinks dully and crosses back to the bed, crawling under the covers with Damon. Damon knows not to try to pull him close. Instead, he puts his fingers against the inside of Alaric's wrist, as if to remind him he has a pulse.

Alaric meets his eyes. "Hey," he says.

"Hey."

Alaric is trying too hard to smile. False and nervous.

Damon speaks with his voice low, with almost no intonation. "You okay?" Not really a question, as the answer is very clearly 'no' – what Damon means, and what he hopes Alaric understands, is that he is asking: 'are you ready to talk about it yet?'

To which the answer is still, definitely, 'no', as Damon can see. But Alaric needs to know he is seen, he's been caught. Damon has noticed. Alaric offers another false smile. "Yeah," he says.

Means, 'I'm not ready to talk about it'.

Heavy breathing, then. Damon climbs over Alaric's body, runs lips and tongue rough against Alaric's throat, his jaw. Alaric groans, his hips rolling against Damon's.

Storm's coming, but it's not here yet.


Alaric sits at one end of the couch in the library with a book. It's his main pastime. Perhaps, Damon thinks, they need to come up with something epic to do. Distract him, get him out of his head. There were all those weddings. (As Damon thinks this, he turns the ring on his own hand.) And the road trip last year was great, arguing and griping notwithstanding. Fun. And something to fill the gaps.

Alaric has a serious problem. Damon has been watching it building for a while.

The fundamental problem is that Alaric hasn't yet accepted that he is a vampire.

He chose it, yes; went in with both eyes open. It's not the same thing, though, to accept that you are fundamentally changed. Not human. Not any more. Dead, in some ways. And that everyone you know, everyone you care about, is going to die.

Alaric thinks of himself as a human who drinks blood and doesn't age; who can fuck all night and not get tired; who can drink two bottles of bourbon and wake with a grin on his face.

Alaric is totally incapable of drinking blood from the source without Damon there to watch him, more so now than in the first couple of years. The last time Damon convinced him to go out and try, Alaric had robbed a blood bank, and when Damon asked him why, he'd said it was more convenient.

"And if they run low on blood?"

"I'll go help with the next blood drive. I can be convincing." Alaric had shrugged, filling the chest refrigerator in the basement.

"You mean you can be compelling."

Alaric had shrugged again, taking a blood bag, passing one to Damon. "I don't think we should drink in Mystic anyway. We're supposed to be lying low. If Liz catches a whiff, she'll stake us both."

"You didn't do this in Mystic. You went into the city. You've been gone half the day."

"It made sense." Alaric had grinned his lazy grin, and headed back upstairs.

Problem with trying to win this argument, of course, was that every part of the argument was solid, in and of itself; everything except the part where it was time for Alaric to man up and learn to drink from the source, by himself, without killing, before the day came when he pulled a Stefan and chowed down on whatever was in front of him, until whatever was in front of him was dead.

Could be one of the few humans they both actually cared about. And besides, Alaric cared about humans in general.

None of this was insurmountable by itself. But in combination with the look Damon has started to see cross Alaric's face, from time to time, the horror of absent breath; he suspects – no, he knows – that Alaric is about to hurtle head-first into the first existential crisis of his unlife.

Soon, but not yet. A distraction. A holiday? Fuck. Something, anything.

After watching Alaric turn a page or two, Damon busies himself elsewhere. Tidies the kitchen. Flicks through a pile of bills. He hears Alaric's phone ring, and his ears prick up. Pads silently through the house to the library, and stops at the door, leaning against the jamb.

Alaric is standing in front of the fireplace, phone to his ear, a broad smile splitting his face wide open. He nods at Damon.

Storm effectively delayed, Damon thinks, and lifts his eyebrows. He hasn't seen a smile that broad in a while. This is going to be one hell of a distraction.

"We'll see you in twenty minutes," Alaric says into the phone. Good old-fashioned Alaric grin on his face, higher on his left side than his right, and a little incredulous. He hangs up.

"What?"

"Did you know Matt and Elena were trying to adopt a baby?"

Damon frowns. "No. Are they?"

Alaric shakes his head. "Not any more," he says. "They picked her up in Charlottesville yesterday."

It takes a lot longer than twenty minutes to get to the Donovan house because Damon and Alaric hit High Street. They buy flowers, champagne.

They stop in the town's one baby shop and freeze. Row upon row of clothes and thousand-dollar cots and toys, toys in every stupid imaginable color. It looks like a rainbow ate a whole lot of ice cream and then threw up until it couldn't any more.

"Jesus," Alaric says.

Damon agrees, but less eloquently, with his brow furrowed and no trace of a smirk. He does open and close his mouth, several times. "Maybe a box of cigars," he muses.

"Matt and Elena don't smoke."

"I meant for me." Damon looks balefully at a rack of the smallest t-shirts he has ever seen. They bear the pithy slogan 'if you think I'm pretty, you should see my mommy.'

A shop assistant offers to help, and Damon elbows Alaric in the ribs. "Let's just give them cash."

Alaric shakes his head. "They'd never accept it."

"We'll take a gift voucher," Damon tells the woman. She looks rather like an over-sized baby herself. Damon imagines it is supposed to be soothing but pink ruffles have never been his thing. In combination with the halo of fluffy blonde hair it is quite horrifying. Though she has a tiny waist, and an apple butt.

Damon likes apple butts.

She leads them to the counter. "How much?" she asks. Damon narrows his eyes at Alaric. "Five? Ten?"

"It's Elena and Matt," Alaric agrees. "Ten."

The woman looks less impressed.

"Ten thousand," Damon says.

The woman looks like her insides are going to fall out of her vagina. She can't quite breathe. "Ten thousand dollars?"

"Ten thousand rubles," Damon says. "Yes, ten thousand dollars."

"Gift vouchers come in hundred-dollar increments," she says, when she can speak again. "Maximum."

In the end they set up an account, and take ten vouchers away with them. Alaric grins all the way to the Donovan house.

"A baby," he says. "Fuckin' cool, man," and he shakes his head. Looks altogether too much like Alaric.

Damon shouldn't be relieved. This will be a temporary reprieve. And the coming storm is necessary.

Still, he is relieved.


Elena and Matt look five years older, and five years younger, too, so it all evens out. Elena hugs Alaric first, then Damon, and squeals over the flowers, and feigns indignation at the gift vouchers; she knows they don't lack for money, though, and since she will be off work for a while, she is grateful.

"We called her Jenna," she admits, and the look she flashes Alaric is almost regretful.

Matt hovers over the crib. Besotted.

"Jenna," Alaric breathes. "That's good. I'm glad."

Jenna and Alaric were a flash in the pan. Once Damon had his hands on Alaric Jenna had rolled her eyes and wished them well; still she and Alaric had been close friends, up to the moment she died, and Damon knows the memory stings. Alaric reaches for Jenna's hand and her tiny fingers close over one of his.

"Six months?" Fuck. It's like he knows what he's talking about. Even Elena looks impressed. Alaric is grinning, and Damon watches carefully, his hands tucked in his pockets.

Elena nods. "She's been in hospital since she was born, and she's a little small. But six months."

"She's healthy now, though." Alaric doesn't sound worried; just sounds like it is the most important thing imaginable. Little girl with her hand clutched tight over the finger of someone who will, no question, lay his life down for her.

Fuck. Damon wishes he hadn't let himself think that.

Alaric's eyes on Jenna are almost too much to take, so Damon does his best to ruin the moment. "Shooting blanks, Donovan?" he asks, but nothing can spoil Matt's mood.

"We didn't think it was a good idea to have our own," he says. "This way, we know Elena is the last Petrova." He shrugs. "What do I care? I still get a family out of it. Jenna's still my daughter."

"May I?" Alaric asks, arms already reaching, and Elena giggles.

Alaric, it should be said, appears to know what he is doing. Jenna's eyes are open and alive on his, blowing raspberries, and Alaric picks her up like some kind of freaking baby whisperer, one hand behind her head, the other supporting her weight. Up against his chest.

"Don't eat her," Damon says. Elena splutters, but Matt and Alaric both look relaxed. Jenna thrusts a hand into Alaric's neck, and spreads a tiny palm over his shoulder.

It's sort of spell-binding, actually. Alaric has a goofy look on his face, and Jenna has stilled, a little, though one arm waves about. Alaric raises his eyebrows at Damon.

There's a moment of confusion, before Damon knows what he is being asked.

"Nooo," he says. "I'm fine. I'm happy to watch. I'll pour the champagne."

Damon doesn't want to watch their expressions, but once in the kitchen, he can't not look up. Only for a moment, but three pairs of eyes are bright on Damon's, and one pair sleepy.

"You won't hurt her," Elena says, incredulous. "I know you won't."

"Of course I won't," Damon says, and finds two champagne glasses and two mismatched wine glasses in the cupboard. He makes a mental note to buy Matt and Elena some nice glasses. Pops the cork with far more gusto than necessary, and pours the drinks. Pretending, all the while, that they are not staring at him.

Alaric speaks. Of course he does. Alaric has no goddamn filter. "Have you ever held a baby before?"

"Of course I have," Damon snarks back. "I had a baby brother, in case you've forgotten."


1847

Damon has not forgotten, though to be fair, the memory is indistinct, now; graciously vague, though it still has the ability to make him feel the remnants of something like fear. Sneaking silently into the room where his beautiful mother had screamed for half the night and then been too silent.

Damon's father was collapsed beside Damon's mother's bed, wailing, keening, holding her hand, and there was blood everywhere. Like a tide. Over the edge of the bed.

(Damon suspects he exaggerates it now in memory because he knows, now, exactly how much blood there is in the human body.

It's not a tidal wave. It can't have painted the walls, the way it does in his memory. Six quarts, give or take. Not an ocean.)

The midwife had washed Stefan's face, and wrapped him tight in swaddling.

"Your father needs some time, and your brother needs you," she had said, and pressed Stefan into Damon's seven-year-old arms. She had showed him how to support the head, but hadn't explained why; at seven, back then, with a Jesuit father, Damon was expected to be able to manage most things, and this was no different. Skin a rabbit, hold a baby, recite his prayers.

Damon had taken Stefan to his bedroom and made him a nest of blankets. Fetched water and cloth and washed him, properly, all the blood and goo. It had felt good, to have something important to do, something which didn't require him to process what he thought he knew, and what no one had yet told him: Damon's mother was dead.

Damon remembers how his hands had shaken, so badly, so badly.

Damon knew about death. They'd lost cats, dogs, horses. He'd seen one of the maids, early one morning, only a young woman; she had sat down in front of the fire the night before and never woken up. It had been Damon who fetched the housekeeper to see if she could wake her. The housekeeper had taken him aside and said the angels had taken her up in the night. (Made no sense; she was Right. There.)

Clean, Stefan was just a wonderful pink thing. Wrinkled and tense, but quiet. Surely, by now, he should be crying. He'd lost his mother, too. He didn't cry, though. Not for a long time.

Damon's seven-year-old hands had wrapped Stefan up again. In his memory the hands are small and clumsy, though he thinks he did alright. He knows he pulled Stefan in and against his chest, once he was finished and wanted to sleep, and that he didn't cry, because he didn't want Stefan to know he'd been born into a world that had been ruined just as he entered it.

Damon, it should be said, was a dedicated brother.

Stefan's first word – first syllable, perhaps, was 'Dam'. Stefan's first steps were across their shared bedroom and into Damon's eight-year old arms. When Stefan got too big for Damon to pick him up any more, Stefan cried and clutched at him. They shared a room until Stefan was three years old, and after that, Stefan snuck into Damon's bed if he had a bad dream.

If Stefan fell and hurt himself, it was Damon who picked him up and tended to his wounds. When Damon was hurt, Stefan cried, too, until Damon proved he was alright.

The women in church cooed at them, the little Salvatores, which was fine; Damon didn't mind sharing, as long as everyone knew that Stefan was his.

Damon hadn't had a lot of time human. Not compared to the rest of his life, anyway. But as a child, and as a young man, taking care of Stefan, the one thing he knew about himself was this: He was a brother. He had a family, and that family was Stefan. He'd do anything for him, teach him everything he needed to know. Protect him.

Damon wondered, often, if the reason he let Stefan convince him to take that first drink and become a vampire was because the thought of letting Stefan float around, untethered, for all of eternity, without Damon to look after him was too horrible for words.


March 2020

"You haven't held a baby in over a hundred and seventy years," Elena says. "And you don't want to hold our daughter?"

Damon sniffs irritably. "I'm fine."

He brings glasses to the living room and passes them around.

"Damon…" Elena looks confused.

Damon sneers. "Remember how vampires are terrifying monsters you don't hand your children over to? I can see her just fine from here."

The room is very quiet, suddenly.

Elena looks hurt, and Matt confused. Alaric looks pissed, kisses Jenna's head gently, muttering soft cooing noises. "Ignore him," Alaric whispers.

"We were…" Elena turns to Matt, reaches out a hand, Matt clasps it. "We were going to ask you two to be her godparents."

Totally awesome. Absolutely ridiculous. And also, no. "Vampire godparents? Just drink your champagne."

"I thought it made sense," Elena says. "The whole thing about godparents is if something happens to your parents, they look after you." She runs her hand over Jenna's back, as Jenna has begun to fuss. "And you guys… nothing's ever going to happen to you."

Ouch.

"Of course we will," Alaric says, and rocks Jenna gently.


1904

Different vampires, it seemed, had different skills, some more obvious than others. Damon could manipulate crows and bring about fog. Damon had met a female vampire who could draw cats to her side (a useful trick since cats were generally afraid of vampires and it made her seem less dangerous; it was a credulous time, and vampire hunters were not entirely uncommon).

In 1904 Damon was sitting alone in a piano bar in New York City when a man sat beside him and introduced himself. Damon had smiled seductively and suggested they go for a walk, pointing out that it was still warm outside. Damon found that a particular half-smile and a cocked eyebrow was usually enough to have anyone climbing over their feet to make time with him.

It soothed the self-loathing, a little. Feeling wanted, for the moments it took until Damon found a quite corner and drank from them. A poor substitute for the desire he'd so loved seeing in his Katherine's eyes, but it helped.

"You wouldn't find my blood very nourishing," the man said, and called for a drink.

Apparently, this was one of those vampires who could spot other vampires with relative ease. Damon couldn't do it, not if they were moving around and speaking, breathing; he had no idea if Stefan could. Damon went out of his way to avoid other vampires, generally, and didn't feel like talking to this one; he didn't feel like talking much at all. His plan in coming to this bar was to eventually take over on the piano.

Damon cocked his head and stepped off his stool, but the vampire took his wrist. "Stay," he said, and there was something in his eyes that made Damon want to.

They were quiet, drinking gin together. Damon liked gin; it was subtle and complex. He couldn't understand why people watered it down with sugary mixes. Tonic water. Even coca-cola, which was the worst thing that had happened to the world since Damon died. Terrible stuff.

Damon examined his new companion carefully. "Who are you?"

"Call me Paul."

"I take it that's not your real name."

Paul shrugged. "I've had a few. Can't stay in one place for too long, you know how it goes. I've been Paul a while."

Damon wasn't sure why he told the truth, but he did; "Damon. Salvatore." They shook hands.

"You're young." It wasn't a question.

"Are you asking me when I was born? Or when I died?" Damon shot eyebrows north. "1864," he said.

"1788." Damon believed it; though he looked about thirty, Paul's bearing had something distinctly old about it. Damon tore his eyes away and sipped at his drink. "Tell me, Damon Salvatore. Have you ever killed a vampire?"

Damon was immediately afraid.

There had been rumors; though Damon avoided generally avoided socializing with vampires it wasn't possible to avoid hearing rumors. Someone had killed several vampires in the city, and word was that it was a vampire. The killings had happened in and around Brooklyn, which was an area Damon avoided, a lot of the time, because he loved it, and it made him want to be a part of the world. Still, if anyone thought it was him…

"I had nothing to do with that," he said, defensive. "They were all old, strong. You -"

"No. Calm yourself, Damon."

Damon relaxed, but only a little.

"I need someone to kill me. I can't do it myself." He lit a pipe, and the chocolate smell was fantastic, swirling over and around them at the bar. "Believe me, I've tried." He finished his drink, and ordered another, and then told Damon his story.

Damon had left Mystic Falls and never intended to go back, though it called to him; he couldn't, of course. But Mystic Falls wasn't like other places. Mystic Falls knew about vampires. He would have been chained up outside the church and the townsfolk would have gathered to watch him burn as the sun rose; they would have packed picnics, probably.

Sometimes, Damon thought that even sounded appealing. He would have done it, if not for the one thing that kept him tethered to the world; he would, one day, find a way to release Katherine from the tomb.

Paul had a very different story.

He had been father to four daughters, their mother long dead, when he was turned, and he drank because he couldn't let them go to the poorhouse or be raised by his wife's sister, who thought children should be seen, and not heard. So he had completed the transition and fed from animals, and drifters, and tried not to kill.

He had kept his secret, laid low, raised his daughters. And then he had watched them raise their own families. The lies were complex and had to change every few years but he was introduced and re-introduced to his family, over the years, as various long-distant uncles and cousins. Sometimes he forgot the name he was supposed to respond to but he got by.

No one had taught Paul to be a vampire. He knew nothing of the switch that was supposed to make it possible to just stop feeling. All he knew was that he had attended his daughters' funerals, and had buried three grandsons, too, and he couldn't do it any more.

It was watching his remaining grandchildren raise their own children that had made him run, suddenly, just run and never return. He had left California and never once went further west than Nebraska, for forty years.

He ached for his family, daily. Drank as little blood as he could manage and said with a degree of pride that after so many years he had killed only a handful of times, and only in the direst of circumstances.

"I don't think I ever really knew, knew, that I was a vampire, really understood what that meant, until I left my family behind," Paul said. It struck Damon as strange. What was a vampire, if he wasn't a man that never got old and drank blood to survive?

"Why are you telling me this?" Damon had narrowed his eyes. "Are you telling me I should keep in touch with my vampire-hating extended family? Or that I shouldn't?"

Paul had shrugged. "There's no lesson intended. I don't know what the answer is." He puffed on his pipe, seeming to enjoy the breath. "I've been alone a long time. I have chosen you to end my life, and if you're going to end it, I want you to know a little about it, as well."

"You know, I haven't actually agreed." Truly, Damon wasn't sure he could really do it. Kill to eat, kill because the blood is running too hot and too fast, sure, though Damon hadn't killed in years. But in cold blood, someone eighty years his senior?

"You'll do it." There was no threat in Paul's voice; it was a statement of fact.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because I can see you were a good man, before you were a vampire. And how often do you get a chance to do a kindness these days?"

Paul and Damon were silent a while, letting the music wrap around them. The bar had filled up steadily and people were dancing close together, swaying. Lust spiced the blood up and Damon could smell it.

After a while, Damon sought his new friend's eyes. He found himself searching for something to say. Perhaps he stared too long, or opened his mouth to speak one time too many, because Paul patted him on the shoulder.

"I don't need you to say anything. Drink with me, a little longer," Paul said; and Damon found he didn't mind the company, so much.

They spent the whole evening together, and left together when the bar closed. They walked for hours through the sleeping city. Paul took his last drink, a careful, measured sip from the wrist of a young man heading home after a night of revelry; "I don't need to keep myself well, now. I'll be dead before sunrise. Still, a last mouthful."

Damon had nodded, only, and stood a respectful step away, waiting.

The sunrise was probably only an hour away when Damon finally agreed, though Paul didn't react; he'd known all along that Damon would agree, in the end. "How do you want to do this?"

"I wish I could see a sunrise," Paul said, with a wistful note in his voice. "But since that would kill us both…"

"I can do a sunrise," Damon said, surprising himself. It was a secret he guarded jealously. Any one of thousands of older, stronger vampires would have killed him for his ring. "But if it's just a matter of waiting, you could do that yourself."

Paul shook his head. "No. I've tried. As soon as the sun's rays hit me, I run until I have adequate shelter. We're like humans in that; we're not designed to let ourselves die easily. I'll drink this -" he pulled a small glass bottle from the pocket of his great-coat. Vervain tea, Damon assumed, and he flinched. "I would have drunk it and then had you stake me. But if you can do a sunrise…" He had looked almost happy. "And then I'll need you to hold me still, once the sun starts to rise. I'll be weakened. You'll manage."

"Of course, once you're up in flames…?"

"You'll let go. It will be too late for me by then."

They strolled to Central Park, and the first rays were threatening the skyline, and Paul was about to drink the vervain, when he turned to Damon, and oddly, ran his tongue over his lips.

"I haven't kissed anyone in a very long time," he said, and there was a question in it.

Damon hadn't kissed anyone since Katherine. Forty years. His lips held her memory, her impression. Damon wasn't even sure why, but he let that slip aside. He leaned, just a little, and brushed his lips over Paul's.

Paul whimpered, a little, and there was such need in the sound that Damon let his lips part. Just enough so they could press their tongues together a moment.

Something for Paul to take into the void with him.

Paul pulled away first. "Thank you, Damon Salvatore," he said, and drank down the vervain. He coughed, clutching at his throat, just as the first rays of sun really hit.

It was entirely horrible, watching Paul's skin sizzle, but Damon held him down, wrists behind his back, with his face pointed at the sun, so he could see it, as much as that was possible. It was difficult; Paul may have been weakened by vervain but he was still older and stronger than Damon, and Damon had to fight hard to hold him down.

Soon, the heat got to be too much, and Damon had to back away fast. He found himself clutching his ring, holding it tight. Fingers curled in a fist until the metal was biting into his flesh.

Insensible, Paul tried to get to his feet, but only rose to his knees. Damon couldn't watch, any more, but he heard Paul catch alight, moments or years later, and the curdled scream his burning lungs couldn't quite form. Damon didn't even realize, until he opened his eyes, once it was over, that he had begun to cry; silent, but there, just teardrops spilling over his cheeks.

There was nothing left but a pile of greasy ash and a mangled tin of pipe tobacco.

Long and hard as he thought on it, over the years, Damon was never sure he had learned a thing, from Paul, except that it is possible to kill someone at dawn in Central Park and not have a single person so much as notice. Perhaps there was no lesson to be learned at all.


March 2020

A lot of Damon's conversations with Alaric can be held without so much as a word spoken out loud, these days. A Morse code of eyes widened and narrowed, eyebrows hitched high and bright or drawn low and dark. Half a smile; the best half, sometimes, across a crowded room, when Alaric's eyes seek Damon's.

Alaric's eyes, now, only communicate that he is waiting for Damon to stop being a dick, and honestly, Damon is wondering why is acting the way he is. It just seems too ridiculously impossible for a human to trust him so much she actually wants him to hold her baby.

No, that's not it.

It's the thought of all they have now and all they will one day lose. This unbelievably beautiful pink squirming thing in Alaric's arms will, if she is lucky, get old and die. And they'll watch.

They might watch her grandchildren die, too.

That such a thing should happen now, when Alaric is just beginning to get a grip on what his unlife means is like a celestial joke, or something. Still, what had Damon asked for? A distraction?

(Damon reminds himself, with the memory of Paul suddenly so fresh in his mind, that Paul was alone; Damon and Alaric are not.)

At last, Damon nods, and reaches for Jenna, cautious. Slips his hand beneath Alaric's, supporting Jenna's tiny head. "Hello," he says, and Jenna blows a raspberry.

She smells like vanilla, and Elena, and something pink and fresh. Damon presses his lips to her head. Tangled webs, indeed.

"So does she have one godfather, or two?" Elena asks, that slightly fond, slightly frustrated smile painted sweetly across her lips.

"Two," Damon and Alaric both say, at exactly the same time.

"It's not a church thing, though, right?" Damon demands. "I don't think vampires burst into flames when they walk into a church but I'd rather not find out."

Jenna balls her hands into tiny fists in Damon's t-shirt, so, whatever. As Alaric would say; family, man. It's all weird.

August 2020

The storm hasn't come in. The clouds have rolled right back. Doesn't mean it's not still coming.

It has to be said: Alaric is really fucking good at this stuff. Changes diapers like a pro and sits for hours patting Jenna's back when she has indigestion. Elena and Matt have a date night, every now and then, and Damon and Alaric fucking babysit, of all the ridiculous things, and Jenna is always fast asleep when they return home.

"How does he always get her to sleep?" Elena asks Damon, when she and Matt get home one night.

"He sings to her." Damon frowns.

"I didn't know Ric could sing." Elena is surprised.

Damon grimaces. "He can't."

"Fuck you, Damon," Alaric calls, from his place on the couch, with Jenna asleep on his chest.

Damon barely gets through the door of the boarding house before Alaric has his big hands all over him, running over the muscles that ripple beneath Damon's skin, peppering him with eager, hungry kisses. Damon grins against Alaric's mouth, and shivers when Alaric's fingers quest up into Damon's hairline, anchoring him in place.

"What's got into you?" Not that it matters, not that Damon cares, really; famous libidos they both have and they are beautifully matched in this but sometimes there's more to it than sex, and Damon feels oddly sure this is one of those times; the smile on Alaric's face, perhaps, or just that he is kissier than usual. Something is different. Whatever. Damon doesn't care.

"I d'know, man. Life, or something. Massive fucking turn-on. You know?"

Maybe. Yes.

They half-stumble up the stairs, and undress themselves, not each other; more efficient, that way. Alaric's eyes are big and dark and they glitter in the low light, as Damon pulls him down onto the bed, climbs over him. Presses their bodies together, two fine bodies, strong and lean. Alaric's legs are thrown over Damon's shoulders as Damon takes and retakes him, Alaric with his spine arched and his head thrown back, hands pressed hard at his sides against the bed covers, or pulling on Damon's arms.

When their eyes are open they are on each other, always. They're not always open.

Alaric is so turned on his lips look surgically enhanced, and Damon takes the bottom lip between his teeth and tugs, none too gently. "This is a good look for you," he says.

"So you keep telling me. Fuck, Damon," Alaric groans, as he comes hard in the narrow space between their bodies, and again, when Damon follows moments later. Alaric unhooks his legs and pulls Damon close.

They lie like that for a long time, and then shower quickly, and return to bed.

"You…" Damon starts, but he can't go on. Alaric nudges him.

"Say it. You always get that look after we've sat for Jenna." Alaric puts one hand behind his head. "So whatever it is, say it."

"If it wasn't for me, you might have one of those of your own." One of the hardest sentences Damon has ever uttered. "Maybe a few of them."

Alaric actually laughs. "You serious?"

Damon draws himself up to his elbows. "Yes. What?"

"You knew Is, right? I mean, you didn't just sleep with and drink from her and kill her. You talked to her."

Damon feels a chill; yes, they talked. They got to know each other rather better than he's ever really admitted to Alaric. "What's your point?"

"My point is she was never going to be a mother. I mean, she said it was what she wanted, before we got married. But after, she wouldn't even talk about it. And if you hadn't turned her – someone else would have. Or she would have ended up dead." Alaric runs the back of his hand over Damon's arm.

"If I hadn't turned her, you wouldn't have come here," Damon counters. "You might have met some human, had kids eventually." Damon takes Alaric's hand and turns the wedding ring, spinning it slowly on Alaric's finger.

"There's more than one way to have a family, Damon," Alaric says, and settles back against the pillows. "Goodnight."

With his mind turning still, Damon tucks himself against Alaric's body, reaches a strong arm across Alaric's chest, and settles in to sleep.


1912

The worst thing Damon had ever seen, and the moment he knew he was wrong – wasn't a brother, didn't have a family, didn't deserve a family – was in 1912. It had been nearly fifty years since they'd spoken. The first chance Damon had to be a brother in all that time, and he'd fucked up again: when he'd cajoled Stefan into drinking from a woman's neck, instead of a defenseless bunny-rabbit, and Stefan had torn off her head.

Watching Stefan try to put the woman's head back on had almost undone Damon completely. Some half-broken part of him had to fight the urge to laugh, though he understood Stefan's urge. Something so utterly wrong couldn't possibly be real.

Stefan had run, and Damon hadn't tried to chase him or stop him.

He'd gone with Sage, instead. Stayed on the road with her for months. He ignored the stories he heard about the Ripper of Monterey, even when Sage needled that she thought it might be Stefan.

They travelled through the south, and had been on the road less than a week the first time Sage brought Damon to her bed.

He had tried to argue. "I told you, I am spoken for. I will rescue my Katherine from the tomb one day…"

"And if she's any kind of vampire she won't care how many beds you've graced with this magnificent body in her absence, Damon Salvatore. Or is she a prude?"

Damon had to close his eyes against the memory of Katherine trying to cajole him to share a bed with her and Stefan, how she had said it didn't matter, rules against incest were to stop mutant children from being born. She'd been angry that neither Stefan nor Damon would agree. Damon wondered occasionally why she had never compelled them.

Something Katherine knew they couldn't forgive her for, when she turned them and the compelled memories reverted, he supposed.

"Not a prude," Damon had said, as Sage's mouth closed over his.

It was like he'd forgotten what his cock was for, but Sage reminded him quickly enough, sitting on top of Damon, riding him like a whore, wanton and wanting, and –

No. Not a whore. Like a woman who knew what felt good, knew what she wanted. Knew how to make it feel good for whoever shared her bed, too. This was what he had been missing.

Damon quickened his pace, controlling Sage's hips. Thrusting deeper and harder, reveling in her moans, Damon experienced his first non-self-induced orgasm in nearly fifty years.

Sage educated Damon thoroughly. In New Orleans, they met with her friend Julian Etoile, a French vampire whom she had met in Lyon many years before. Julian was very handsome, with cheekbones you could cut yourself on, hair so blond it was almost white, and eyes nearly as pale a blue as Damon's own. He was enormously wealthy, and dressed to show it off.

The three of them had drunk an enormous amount of absinthe, carefully straining it over cubes of sugar to take the bitter edge off, as was the fashion of the day. The wormwood electrified them all, and the night took on a green tint. Julian's eyes on Damon's made Damon's face ache, and his cock twitch.

In Julian's manor just a few blocks from the French Quarter, their clothes were flung in every direction. Hands and lips brushed and snatched and tasted until Julian dropped to his hands and knees on the bed, and begged Damon in three languages to fuck him.

(Damon had, once, while human, kissed another man; his best friend, he supposed they'd say now, John Lockwood. It was war-time. They were weeks into the march across the south, and had miraculously found themselves with one of the small tents usually reserved for officers; there was a spare, and they were the oldest in the regiment, so it was offered to them. They had kissed, and traded soft, fearful touches, nothing more. If either knew what he was doing there might have been more to it than that, though Damon was picturing Katherine waiting for him back in Mystic Falls.)

Damon hadn't hesitated. As Sage sat in a beautiful old arm chair, legs spread wide and eyes on the scene before her, bringing herself to climax with a well-practiced hand, Damon had knelt on the bed behind Julian. Had gripped Julian's hips, and well-lubricated with a perfumed oil Julian kept in a beautiful crystal decanter on his nightstand, Damon had discovered all the other things he'd been missing.

Damon loved the feeling of controlling and being controlled by someone with a body so strong and so well-matched to Damon's own. He loved the ferocity of the kisses, firmer lips than Damon was used to; not that he was very experienced, even kissing, but the feeling of Julian's rough-shaved facial hair against Damon's face was alien, and fantastic, and Damon was left wondering why anyone bothered to decide, ever, that they preferred one type of sex over the other. The pleasures of the flesh were just that.

They had all the energy in the world, and a dozen servants to feed off, so they didn't leave the house for days. They drank bottle after bottle of absinthe, and smoked opium, too. The effect of opium on vampires was (for reasons Damon never quite understood) quite different to the effect it had on humans. It honed their senses to razor-sharp, made every touch almost too much. They fitted and slotted together in every combination two men and a woman can achieve, and slept in a warm, fucked-out pile only when they absolutely had to.

By the time he and Sage were ready to leave, a few days later, Damon was, for the first time in nearly fifty years, very much awake. His nerves were electrified, crackling. He didn't even care, any more, that he had a brother somewhere.

Damon and Sage spent nearly a year together, on the road and off it. In California, Damon decided he wanted to head off on his own for a while.

"Don't forget what I taught you," Sage said, on that last morning, in an elegant hotel in Los Angeles.

"If it feels good, fuck it?" Damon had smirked – one of the first of his real Damon-smirks, now so honed and so much a part of himself – and Sage had kissed him, one last time.

"That, yes. And snatch-eat-erase," she added. "This life can be so beautiful, Damon, if you let it. I hope you get your Katherine back. Perhaps one day I'll get my Finn back."

"How long since…?"

Sage's answer had shocked Damon. He'd never even asked her age, just known from her strength that she was far older than he was. "Eight hundred years." Sage had tugged on a lock of Damon's soft black hair, and smoothed a hand down his chest. Damon had caught Sage's chin on his finger, and met her eye.

"You love him still?"

"Love fades for humans," she had answered, a little sadly. "Not for us."


September 2020

Alaric is sitting on the edge of the bed when Damon wakes.

Damon says nothing, and isn't sure Alaric has even heard him wake; but Alaric turns his head. Not enough to see Damon, nowhere near it, just the briefest acknowledgment that Damon has woken.

"I think… I'm fucked up," he admits.

Damon climbs out from the bed covers, tangled from the previous night's exertions. Fits his body behind Alaric's body and wraps his legs around Alaric's hips. Props his chin on one of Alaric's shoulders, and loops his arms around Alaric's chest.

"Breathe," Damon says. "Just breathe."

"You knew this was coming."

Damon kisses Alaric's shoulder. Answer enough. "I told you it's not all fun. You'll get through it."

"You didn't say it right. You didn't say it was like this." Alaric shakes his head. "What's happening to me?"

"You're finally realizing you're a vampire," Damon says. "With all that entails."

They are silent, long moments. Breathing together. "It won't be like this for long, though. Right? Tell me you don't feel… whatever this is, all the time."

"It comes and goes," Damon admits. "Variations on a theme. But it's been a very long time since I felt what you're feeling right now." There's no point in lying. Alaric has never been a fan of being lied to, whether it's about Damon paying a phone bill or the world coming to an end.

"I'm…" Alaric stutters, and stops. "I'm dead."

"You're dead."

"I used to tell Caroline…"

"That her heart beat. And that she thought, and acted, though not necessarily in that order. Yes." Damon runs his hands over Alaric's sides. "You did."

"Because…"

Damon squeezes a little tighter. Just an affirmation. There is nothing sexual in the gesture. "Because what is there, to being alive, if it's not that? Our hearts beat. We talk, we think. We fight, and we fuck. We babysit, which is still ridiculous, by the way. We have friends. Responsibilities. A house. So…"

Alaric is very smart, current state of his mental health notwithstanding. "Fuck, Damon."

Damon waits.

Alaric rarely cries; perhaps as frequently as Damon does. And he's not crying now, though Damon thinks he can smell the threatening tears.

"I'm dead. Actually dead."

There it is. Step one.

"Yes. Dead."

Maybe it's the fact that Alaric died four times, before the last time, and woke up entirely himself each time; his actual death (and yes, in ways that can't really be explained to a human, vampires are dead) hadn't been as unsettling to Alaric as it was to other newly-woken vampires. He had felt his first death (at Damon's hands, in front of the fireplace, only feet and inches below where they are now) much more than the last one, when he had known he was going to wake up with Damon's across his chest.

Damon feels Alaric's heart speed further. It flutters like a caged bird in Alaric's chest. Faster and faster. Damon presses his lips to Alaric's shoulder, again, lingering. He thinks, for a moment, about biting Alaric. Reminding him of who they are, together. He speaks again, instead. "It could be worse."

Alaric shakes his head. "That's hard to believe."

"Doesn't make me any less right," Damon argues. "At least you're not doing it on your own."

Alaric leans back, and keeps breathing, and wraps his big hands around Damon's forearms.

It doesn't stay bad, not like that; but Damon reminds himself daily that's it's only the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.


December 2020

On the twenty-second of December Damon and Alaric go to the Donovan house for an early Christmas; basically an excuse to shower Jenna with gifts and see who can coax the most steps out of her.

It has been amusing to everyone but Alaric that Jenna, now that she is a little more mobile and independent, has a clear preference for Damon. She is affectionate with them both, but her third word – after 'mom', and 'dad' – was 'Dam' (the memory of Stefan doing the same thing had almost knocked Damon off his feet, the first time), and she is yet to utter 'Ric', no matter how much time Alaric spends trying to make her say it.

Matt and Elena are having Christmas in New York with Jeremy and Tyler, who don't have time to travel, thanks to… Whatever, Damon wasn't paying attention, when Elena explained. Something architects do. So an early Christmas and then Damon and Alaric have the whole of Mystic Falls to themselves for two weeks. The Donovans will be back a few days into the new year.

The following day Damon and Alaric drive Matt, Elena and Jenna to the airport in Charlottesville, and Damon plays peek-a-boo with Jenna for an hour while they wait to move through security.

Driving back to Mystic Falls Alaric is quiet, though he doesn't look unhappy; he drives, that's all, and hums in the out-of-tune way he tends to. It totally ruins the perfection of Damon's road-trip playlist, but whatever.

"Let's fly to New York for New Year's," Alaric says, and Damon thinks sure, why the fuck not. From his cell he books tickets, a hotel.

On arrival at the boarding house they are relaxed, laughing, admitting it won't entirely suck to get a break from the near-constant baby-duty, and then Alaric tenses.

Actually, no. He doesn't just 'tense'. His whole body changes. Damon hears the shift in Alaric's heartbeat. Every muscle prepares for whatever it will be called to do.

"What?"

Maybe it's because Alaric was a human amongst vampires for so long but his threat detection is pretty fucking impressive. His hand closes hard around Damon's wrist. "There's a vampire here," he says.

Damon frowns. "It's probably Saint Stefan. Though…"

"No. It's not Stefan."

There's barely a sound. Nothing more than what silk brushing against silk might sound like. And then a familiar figure steps out of the shadows, and into the entry hall.

Tallish, for a chick, especially one born a thousand years ago. Blonde hair altogether too neatly arranged. Wearing a dress so short it should be calling itself a blouse. Frosted pink lipstick. And a gun in each hand.

"Hello, boys," Rebekah says, and pulls the triggers.

Damon has barely enough time to notice the agony of the vervain racing through his veins before he hits the ground, and the world goes black.


A/N: An unsatisfying sort of chapter, I know - not just because of the cliffhanger, but because everything is left a little unsigned and irritable. Well, that's life. This chapter marks the first of three that will see Alaric change in some important ways.
The next few episodes will reveal Klaus's fate, we will spend some time with Rebekah, and finally see the return of Bonnie, who I have been missing. Stay tuned!