I actually had a hard time writing this one.

But well, it was an eventful chapter.

Each a monster, part 6: Hindrance

Damon got out of the car and walked to the reception. He knew for sure that Alaric was in this motel, the car outside had told him so, he only didn't know where in the motel. So he'd have to ask.

As if he hadn't wasted enough time as it was.

Four days.

For four days, Alaric had simply left every place he had been to minutes before the vampire had come in. If he hadn't known it wasn't on purpose that the man was doing this... well, he'd have thought it was on purpose.

Frankly, Damon had to admit, Ric was freaking good at disappearing. The whole Falkenbach inheritance was genuine, surely. Alaric hadn't even tried to be discreet. Yet he was. No wonder they were the best killers out there, with such innate skills. Luckily for Damon, the hunter had only wanted to go unnoticed, and not to be a freaking human ghost, while doing his work.

The vampire wondered. Would he have been able to keep trailing the man if Alaric had been determined to simply disappear? He couldn't say he was sure of it.

The receptionist was half asleep on her desk when he walked in. Damon patiently waited for almost three seconds, then got bored and banged on the desk. The woman looked at him, startled and angry, but kept her comments to herself when she saw his perfect face.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

Damon used his most charming smile to get close, and it worked wonderfully. The receptionist was almost fluttering her eyelashes into his, and he wondered how she was restraining herself from simply stealing a kiss right now right here.

She couldn't have made it easier for him to compel her.

"A friend of mine is staying in this motel. His name is Alaric Saltzman, but I'm positive he uses an alias. Blue eyes, light brown hair. What is his room number?"

She gave him the room number, and he didn't bother to make her forget their encounter.

And no luck again, Damon saw Alaric as he stepped out, but the hunter was already leaving in his car. This was becoming a bad, very unpleasant habit, the vampire thought.

Could he really be this unlucky?

The vampire gruntled before blurring to his car. Being a vampire allowed him to go fast, sure, but not for too long. Really, he had no chance to win a race against a car, if Ric decided to go somewhere far away. Short of throwing himself under Ric's wheels.

He felt restless as he was driving, restless as he parked, restless as he lost sight of Alaric Saltzman for almost two minutes before noticing him walking with an unknown man into a dark alley.

What?

An unknown man. A dark alley. Alaric.

What?!

Reminding himself that the hunter was hunting, quite literally, a serial killer, and not searching for a substitute to a certain not-so-deceased vampire, Damon calmed down and followed them.

It could only be the said serial killer, couldn't it? Ric was definitely not the kind of man who would sleep around so soon after his lover's death – and not in a dark alley, at that. And even if he had been, Damon was pretty certain the unknown person would have been female, not male. Unless the man looked like him. And no one looked half as wonderful as Damon Salvatore. And from what he had seen, the man wasn't a look-alike. At all.

Putting his jealousy and possessiveness aside for now, the vampire listened attentively to the conversation which had begun not far away. The place was deserted, only two men glaring at each other and a vampire hiding behing a public trash can. Well, it was mostly the unknown man glaring, while Alaric looked like he could behead the idiot without thinking twice about it, and reading a recipe book at the same time without difficulty.

"Why are you following me, exactly?!"

Damon repressed the urge to go at the man's throat for yelling at Ric, the urge to step in and jump the hunter without caring about the idiot, and the urge to off the unknown man to finally be alone with Alaric. He felt that his boyfriend needed to finish his task by himself, and he didn't want to be a hindrance even before making Alaric understand he was goddamn alive.

Alaric's voice was frightening. Blank. Yet terrifying.

And yet so loved. Damon was in love with this voice. The few days he hadn't heard it had been hard. And now, he could hear it again. Even if it was the inhumane version of it. It was still Alaric Saltzman's voice, this voice that could get him to calm down no matter the situation.

"You did bring this upon yourself, doing what you are doing under the name of someone else."

There was a silence. The unknown man was glaring warily at Alaric, who seemed dead serious but also not cautious enough. Damon knew it wasn't the case. And soon, the stranger knew too, as the vampire bumped in the trash can trying to see better.

The unknown man jolted in his direction, while the hunter only looked at the dark figure in the alley. He didn't seem tense or anything. But it was the same as usual. A Saltzman was always ready for anything. Always being obviously on your guard didn't help to go unnoticed.

Alaric, as any other Saltzman, was used to be tense, to the point where he wasn't anymore.

"Who's there?"

Damon took a long breath and came to them.

He saw Ric's face twitching.

That was all the recognition he got.

Alaric looked back at the serial killer he was supposed to erase.

He didn't have time to deal with hallucinations for now.

"As I said before, this is nothing you don't deserve."

The unknown man couldn't see it coming. A blade was pressed against his jugular, his back was pressed against a wall of red bricks, his life was pressed against death, and he had seen nothing.

His eyes flew to the man near the trash can, imploring for his help, but the stranger with raven hair wasn't doing anything. Maybe he knew the one who was threatening him, maybe he was working with him. Maybe that was the reason why the other one hadn't reacted to his presence.

His eyes encountered those of his agressor.

Fear crawled under his skin.

Never before had he seen such eyes.

Eyes with nothing in them. Not the slightest feeling, let alone hesitation.

"I don't know what you think I did, man, but you can't honestly be hoping to kill me here and get away with it. Maybe we could talk about it, drinking a coffee or something."

His agressor snorted at that, a horrid smile distorting his handsome face, while a glint of amusement lighted up his eyes. The unknow man wondered if it was perhaps the devil in disguise. One couldn't possibly look so great and at the same time be able to kill so naturally.

Because he had no doubt about it.

The man was dangerous.

Worst than he was himself, able to do way more than the casual murders he allowed himself to enjoy, and yet unshaken with his own actions.

As if the man didn't really care about the killing. As if killing was in itself no more than breathing.

The unknown man got rid of these thoughts. It wasn't the time to be in awe, not if he wished to live. And he wished to live and to continue slaughtering innocents while hiding behind the name of a renowned serial killer who had been in the field for so long that him and his ridiculous twenty years of age would be a joke of a suspect to the police.

So he had to get rid of this man who seemed to know more than he should have. But for that, he had to switch their positions, to be able to threaten the man and eventually kill him.

Of course, he couldn't know who Alaric was. And he wouldn't know that despite his looks, the young man who was staring at them with a confused face would rip his throat open before anything happened to the man he loved.

Damon was thinking. He remembered Ric's reaction to his phone call, and guessed that it was highly probable that the hunter thought him to be a hallucination. He figured it would be better for everyone if he let Alaric deal with the serial killer before trying to jump him in an alley – well, except for the said serial killer, but who cared about the bastard?

So he had to behave for now.

And maybe he could get to see Ric in his killer-mode, and given the victim was a freaking serial killer, he could totally have no remorse about enjoying the murder and the sexiness of his soon-to-be lover soaked in blood.

The hunter's voice was heard one last time.

"You've upset someone who should never be upset. And you have endangered one of the worst families to threaten. You should never have chosen to hide your killings behind the name of this specific serial killer, for Theodoric Saltzman isn't a serial killer. He's a hitman with very particular ways of hiding his work. And even though he's a horrible man, he's still part of the family. Protecting him is protecting us. And you, you put him in danger with your thoughtless killings. Your existence is a threat upon a family of murderers. You should be able to guess what's coming next."

Realization slowly made its way to the unknown man's mind.

Whoever the hell was this man, whatever the fuck was this family, he had gotten himself in a freaking mess that he wasn't going to escape anytime soon. That was his last thought.

The last things he saw were the eyes of the man who was killing him.

They held no pity, nor excitement, but only blankness. They weren't the eyes of a man, nor the eyes of a devil, but the eyes of death itself. They weren't judging, nor enjoying, but simply witnessing.

Blood escaped his body as a blade sliced his throat.

He didn't notice it was done the exact way he had been putting his own victims out of their misery, the same way he had carefully researched after hearing about the Mobile Maker and thinking he could use this killer to hide his own flaws. He couldn't notice, after all.

He was dead. Dead people didn't notice much.

The body fell to the ground, and Damon thought it was time to intervene.

The sight of Alaric doing whatever he had been doing with blood and threats and a frighteningly hot behavior had him mentally panting already, though everything was a bit blurry to his mind since their eyes had met.

There was no way he'd wait anymore.

Ric frowned as he thought about how he was supposed to get rid of the body. He wasn't eager to dismember anybody this night. He hadn't been eager to do anything for days, to be honest.

He missed Damon, Jenna and Isobel so badly, that killing had been a relief, somehow. He didn't need to think when murdering. Analyzing his surroundings, yes. Thinking, not so much. Not for someone like that serial killer, only able to kill, but not to fight. Instinct was the word.

Damon.

Alaric glanced at the figure that, for once, had followed him out of the motel room.

No need to say that he was a bit more than surprised when the hallucination grabbed him and kissed him angrily.

Their lips met, got away from each other, only to be pulled into an even deeper kiss.

Their eyes were closed, this time.

Neither of them seemed to believe they were really there, together, once again.

Damon's hands roamed under the hunter's shirt, his body came always closer to Ric's, and soon the man began to embrace him as well, his hands wondering around the small of his back, and finally deciding to go and search for the hard curves of the vampire's ass.

Damon groaned, hard already, and opened his eyes when Alaric broke their kiss.

The hunter looked astonished.

"I guess that means you're not a hallucination, this time? But really, how did you survive that bite?"

"Not the time for that, sweetheart. I searched for you for days, but you were always fleeing the scene right before I arrived, and I want some compensation."

Alaric smiled sheepishly, but soon enough his face became serious.

The vampire followed his gaze, and he saw the still form of the nameless serial killer. Shit.

"As much as your ass is calling to me right now, I believe I have some cleaning up to do. You could help, though. It'd be our first date."

The offer was tempting, Damon couldn't say otherwise.