Yaye, so, that's it, I've posted all the already written chapters...
Chapter 22 is here! Cheers!
You've got nothing to be proud of! Yes, you wrote another chapter, and so what?! You should have written it one month ago, if you hadn't been post-poning! How many things did you not do this summer that you had to do? What about your neglected blog? All the times you said I'll write a chapter of "Each a monster" tomorrow and you didn't? The sisty or so books you had to read for school, and you read barely more than ten?! Eh, what do you have to... Bluwartghhelpmeeegeeerh!
Do not worry, it was only me murdering my conscience. Now, you can read.
Each a monster, part 22: Damned Damon Bloody Salvatore the Great Bastard
Alaric gasped for air.
To him, it was strange and unpleasant, waking up without falling asleep beforehand, opening his eyes without closing them to begin with, being suddenly alive again when he hadn't even died.
Sure, he had died.
But it wasn't the point.
Maybe death could be felt. But if that was the case, the hunter forgot everything about it each time he came back to life. To him, there was no death. He was there, dying, and the next second, he was here, gasping for air, eyes wide open, heart in a frenzy. He hadn't died in his mind, only in his body. Time was missing in his head, certainly, but he couldn't help the fact that for him, despite his better judgement, he simply felt that he hadn't died.
So he was here, taking in the place where he was, his brain going half crazy because to him, it was as if he had blinked and the world had changed in the meanwhile.
Alaric recognized the boarding house. His heart slowed down. He was on the couch, in the library.
And he remembered.
Damon.
Damon bloody Salvatore.
"Took you long enough."
The hunter turned slightly his head and saw the vampire standing behind the couch, two glasses of alcohol in hand, offering him one. Ric really felt like drinking, if only to forget that his freaking lover had killed him only hours before. But he knew that his first action if he took something breakable like a glass would be to break it on the vampire's face. And anyway, he wasn't willing to give his ex-boyfriend false hope. Or any hope at all.
That was it. Ex-lover, ex-boyfriend, ex-friend. He wasn't going to talk to Damon for a very long time. When he'd talk to the vampire again, he'd be old and wrinkled and on his deathbed. Then, maybe, he'd forgive the bastard. Not any sooner than on his deathbed.
Alaric sent a death glare at Damon, and tried to sit up.
A sharp and terrible pain bolted through his left shoulder. Hissing in pain, the hunter fell back on the couch. Last time had been the same, and if he hadn't understood at the time, it was because he didn't know the scar was an actual magic seal which reacted very badly to every and any kind of magic. Resurrection was certainly magic.
The hunter glanced at Damon, who looked like he wanted to ask but couldn't dare to, because he certainly knew he was guilty as charged and Ric wouldn't take it well if he showed concern. Not after he had killed him.
Instead, the vampire waited, averting his eyes, and talked only when the teacher managed to sit up, even if not without great pain.
"You're taking longer to come back every time."
Alaric spat on the carpet. It wasn't his style, but he was downright furious.
"As interesting as it sounds, it's not something we should have had to find out."
In the corner of his eye, Ric saw Damon wince sightly.
"I'm sorry."
"You can think it as much as you want, it doesn't change the fact that you killed me."
The pain was unbearable, and Alaric was tired. But he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep for the rest of the night. It ached too much for him to get any rest anytime soon. It wouldn't have happened, if not for his how-so-loveable boyfriend, sorry, ex-boyfriend, Damned Damon Bloody Salvatore the Great Bastard.
Freaking vampire psycho. Why had he hoped the guy could change? Obviously he had been wrong.
The worst being that he was sure Damon really loved him. He had seen it in the vampire's eyes. He had seen it so many times, the hurt in the eyes of his best friend, when he had been oblivious to all that. He hadn't understood back then. But he had seen it.
Damon was in love with him, so much he couldn't even hide it.
But Damon was a lost cause. He was broken, and now the hunter could see it. There was no going back from this kind of breaking. As much as it hurt him too, Alaric couldn't stay near Damon, or he'll end up as broken as the vampire was. A broken vampire was enough trouble, he wouldn't add a broken Saltzman on top of it. Damon was poison, he destroyed everything he touched, he corrupted any happiness he found.
Somehow Ric managed to stand up, and he was making his way out but Damon's voice stopped him. He'd have liked not to stop, to make a point, that he didn't care about the vampire anymore, but it wasn't the truth. Him too, he loved the other man. It hurt as much as it did hurt Damon. But there was no other choice. They were bad for each other, more than they were good for each other.
Alaric needed someone to love and to be loved by. But he couldn't possibly stay with someone whose morals were so messed up he thought he could kill him and get away with it. Damon needed someone to love him and keep him within bounds. But he couldn't stay with someone he got so comfortable with he ended up killing them and think it was alright only because he knew they'd come back to life after a bunch of hours.
But no. Though his mind was telling him it wasn't the clever thing to do, he still stopped, and listened to this voice so loved and so hated at the same time.
"It might be grave, Alaric. I don't want you... I don't want you to die, Ric, even if you'll laugh at my face after what I did. What if you don't wake up next time, what if next time you stay in between, in other words, dead, because the waiting time comes to days, weeks, months, years?!"
The hunter's voice was dry when he looked back at Damon.
"Why, do you plan to kill me again?"
Of course, that wasn't it.
Mystic Falls was the most peaceful place in the world, and Damon's favorite animals were butterflies. There weren't dead and missing people all over the place, and it wasn't a wonder there still were inhabitants in the small city.
But after all that, Alaric only wanted to hurt Damon as much as he had been hurt when the bastard had broken his neck for the sole reason that he felt the urge to drain Bill Forbes of his blood.
"You know what, it isn't even worth talking to you about it. You have no right to worry about me now, and I have half a mind to come back with a flamethrower and use it against you. Of course, I won't do it, because even if I wouldn't feel any remorse, I'd still hate myself afterwards since I can't stop to freaking loving you, you bastard!"
The hunter took a deep breath, cast a last glance at Damon before moving to leave.
Their eyes met. A common look in the eyes, the feeling they were hooked upon the other's, the tearing sensation when they finally forced their eyes to move past the other's glance.
"You don't come near me, you don't talk to me, you just keep your mouth shut if we ever happen to be in the same room."
And with those words, Alaric left Damon alone in the library.
The hunter went back to the Gilbert home. He didn't want to see anyone but he still had to make sure the kids were alright, after all, he was Jeremy's legal guardian. And he knew, even if he didn't feel like it, that meeting people was way better than going into self-imposed exile in his flat.
The last thing he needed was to dwell on Damon's stupidity.
Elena was there, but she was preparing to leave. When she saw the teacher, she went and patted him on the arm, not daring to hug him, because they weren't close enough in age to do that without it being awkward, not willing to say anything, because there was no need to ask, it was obvious.
"Do you want to be left alone?"
Ric considered the offer of solitude, but didn't answer. Instead, he looked at her and at the bag she was holding.
"It's your house, you know."
The young woman frowned, then her eyes followed his to the bag and she understood.
"Oh. No, no, I wasn't planning to leave, though I can go and sleep at Caroline's or Bonnie's if you think you'd be better off alone..."
"Don't. If anything, it's me who should go back to my apartment. I'm not chasing you out of your house because Damon is insane and a first class bastard."
"You're staying there unless you don't want to, Ric. Now, about the bag, I'm going to see Bonnie. Did I tell you about what happened yesterday with my pendant? Yes? Well, she's going to look into it; apparently it's a very old magical object, insanely powerful and all, and she needs a lot of candles, more than what she has at home, as well as salt and other things..."
Well, it was a way as good as any other to get his mind off of his new demise.
"Can I tag along?"
Elena shrugged. She knew why he was asking, and if he didn't want to talk about it, then the best next thing was certainly not to think about it.
"Come if you want. But I warn you, Bonnie's going to do witchy things, and you'll see a levitating pendant or something like that, but you won't understand a thing of what she'll be doing. Fascinating at first, but it gets frustrating after a while."
That wasn't a problem. Hell, he certainly could do with a bit of a magic show without explanations. Right now, he didn't want to think at all, because the thoughts could slide back to his least favorite subject of conversation in the twinkling of an eye without his authorization. A subject with raven hair and ice-blue eyes.
"I'm coming. Can you wait, I don't know, ten minutes? I just want to see if everything is back into shape. You never know, with magic, and I'm hurting so much I don't think I'd even notice if I was bleeding my guts out."
The young woman gave the teacher a worried look, but he ignored it. She told him she'd wait by the entrance door, and Alaric went upstairs, to the bathroom.
Making sure he had locked the door, he carefully removed his shirt and turned his back to the mirror, same as back then, when a werewolf had killed him, his second death. This time, though, he had a good enough idea of what he'd see where the pain was so terrible.
Ric somehow managed to look at the back of his left shoulder in the mirror.
As expected.
The skin around his star-shaped scar was red and itching, and the scar itself was turgid on a small zone, on three of the eight points. Swollen, veinous, scarlet skin was bulging around a scar that was letting out small drops of blood, looking ready to burst open anytime, and he didn't like it.
Three points of a eight-pointed star. Three deaths, too.
Wasn't it too much of a coincidence? And if it wasn't, what did it mean exactly? That he had used three deaths out of eight? That once the whole scar would be that way, the seal that was really this scar wouldn't take any more magic playing with his life and deaths?
A light touch of his fingers on the sore scar was enough to make him hiss in pain. So, knowing already he would regret it, but not for long, Alaric bent upon the bathtub and took a deep breath before doing the unthinkable.
Freezing water poured on the swollen skin, drawing tiny blood drops out of an already damaged scar, hammering with coldness a shoulder that felt like it was going to break into pieces. The hunter gnashed his teeth so hard it was painful, and yet he paid it no mind, because what was going on in his mind and his shoulder was painful enough as it was.
He forced himself to stay still half a minute before turning off the water.
Ric carefully dried his wet shoulder, grimacing each time the towel and the sore skin came into contact. He put his shirt back on, buttoned it, hoping no one would notice the redness on his neck.
Finally the teacher looked at his reflection in the mirror, and grunted at the sight.
He looked whiter than Dam... than a vampire he would not name, except for the skin of his nape, horrendously crimson.
When he got back downstair, Elena was eyeing him warily, as if wondering when he'd explode.
The young woman was the one to drive to Bonnie's house. It was late, or maybe early, they weren't sure, but they didn't feel like sleeping, and they knew from experience that when magic was involved, it was best to gather as much information as possible, maybe even act upon it, before it could all blow up to their face.
They knocked on the door, and Caroline was the one to open it, a smile on her lips.
"Come in, but don't try and go in the circles Bonnie drew with chalk."
