Set in 2x14.
I'm beginning to mess with the show timeline, but... it's a fic, right?
This month is likely to be one of the worst of my life. This is one of the only happyness inducing activities I manage to do without receiving a reminder of how much I'm useless. So you better enjoy it.
And yes, I believe in the frienship between Damon and Andie.
Adjusting to our reality, part 13: You love him
So.
The plan.
Yeah, right, because that was one hell of a plan. Act like a jackass. So that Ric would hate him. As if he wasn't a jackass to begin with. And as if Alaric hating him would change anything about how he felt like shit when he encountered the man who was supposed to be his best friend.
Truth be told, Damon knew he was doing pointless shit. But he really didn't know what else to do. At least, now, their encounters were a lot less frequent, because, since he was being a jerk, Ric didn't want to talk to him.
It helped a little.
It should have helped a lot.
But it didn't.
Last time he had seen Ric wasn't so long ago. Something like hours. But at the time, he had a pencil stuck in his throat and was kind of busy not to leave blood all over the Lockwoods' house. He wasn't really paying his friend attention. Well, besides the fact that he was trying really hard not to steal some of Alaric's delicious blood. Besides the fact that he was trying really hard not to apologize for every thing he had done and word he had said lately. Besides the fact that he was trying really hard to keep the jerk act up.
What was true about it was that now that he saw his best friend once or twice a week, he was being grumpy. Damon Salvatore. Grumpy – considering he wasn't always in the best mood already...
If that wasn't hilarious.
Fingers tapping on his spine caught his attention, and the vampire looked up at Andie who had come back from the bathroom.
"Your house is as amazing as ever."
"Wait until you try the hot tub before saying that."
The reporter glanced at him with squinted eyes.
"I can never tell when you're being sassy or just saying the truth."
"That's because I'm great at doing both at the same time."
The vampire rolled on his bed to get on his back, revealing his temptating hip bones.
"It's a shame you put on underpants."
"So sorry, but I can't only be your sex object. I have stuff to do too."
The woman raised her eyebrows. Apparently, he wasn't convincing enough.
"Funny, I thought I was your sexual object, not the other way around."
"Well, that's not exactly wrong, but you're the one who's already fully dressed."
"And you're the one who's sexually frustrated."
Was he?
He didn't feel like he was.
"Well, you're not the one who has sex with you, so maybe you can't tell, but I can for sure. The way you're holding me, everything you do is about someone else. And before you say anything, it's not your precious Elena. You're barely looking at her anymore."
Damon was uncertain whether or not Andie was right, but if she was, he had no idea who he could have been fantasizing about. And people usually knew when they were having wet dreams and were subject to sexual frustration. So he was most likely not fantasizing about anyone.
Unless his subconscious was hiding it from him, because they were an unsuitable person for his mind. And then, he could still try and guess, he wouldn't find out who it was no matter how hard he tried. Great.
Why would he be having wet dreams about unsuitable people?
And, before everything else, who exactly could be described as unsuitable? Someone ugly, maybe? There was no way it'd be someone ugly.
So he changed the subject of their conversation.
"Alaric resents me because I compelled you into going out with me, you know."
Well, when you said it like that, it was indeed suspicious.
He had just brought it up because the thought had crossed his mind, but Andie took it very seriously. She sat on the bed next to him and talked while looking him in the eyes.
"Don't ever uncompel me, Damon. I want to be your friend, but I would freak out and we wouldn't be able to get past that."
She didn't say that he would most likely have to kill her so that she wouldn't run to Elizabeth Forbes and tell her how a horrible vampire had been using her as a sex object and occasionally as a blood bag, but Damon knew she knew. And she knew he knew. So there was no point in saying it.
At first, Andie had been nothing but a distraction and a blood donor. But now, the vampire couldn't say so anymore. She was kind – even if somewhat compelled, so it was a given but anyway. He felt she was someone he could actually talk to. Not only because she wouldn't go around spilling his secrets, but because she was genuine in her affection for him.
She was like some kind of friend. He was even sad that he couldn't uncompel her so that they would have a real, complete friendship.
Well, lately, people to whom he had opened his heart were all not talking to him, dead, or in dire straits. Such as, Rose being trapped in a mirror.
And... that was all.
Damon had only three friends, and one of them was trapped in a mirror.
His other friend was on his blocklist because that was better for everyone.
And his last friend was being compelled. By him. So not friendly-friend.
But he had it coming. When your main occupation for more than a century was pestering your little brother or avoiding him like the plague, you didn't make many friends.
"Are you okay?"
He hadn't meant to ask it out loud.
Andie frowned, uncertain of what to say.
"Why wouldn't I be okay?"
"I don't know. But I stormed into your life and now I occasionally drink some of your blood without even asking if you're okay. So now, I'm asking."
The woman smiled and caressed his silky black hair.
"I'm the one who went after you, for the record. And yes, I am alright."
"You surely didn't expect me to be of the bloodsucker kind."
"I didn't even know it was for real."
"Nobody does, until they do. What I mean is that I'm still kind of using you, you know."
"I've known worst friends... Wait, what are we exactly? Friends with benefits?"
The two of them chuckled, thinking about how they totally hadn't expected it to end up this way when it had happened the first time.
Andie hadn't been aiming for friendship at all. She had thought he was hot, and needed company. She had hoped that, maybe, it could grow into something more, but surely not into friendship.
Damon had needed someone to forget his loneliness and his sadness with, just for a few hours. He certainly hadn't even been thinking about seeing her again. Supposing he'd let her go alive.
"You aren't perfect, but you are kinder than they think you are. It's just that you are lost in a world which doesn't want you. Your brother couldn't let go of you, when you both died, but your anger led you to try and make his life as difficult as you could. Now, he's happy to know you're alive and all, but he's afraid of leaving room for you in his life. Others think you're only a monster, because you don't want them to see when you are hurt, which happens more frequently than even you think it does. All you need to do is open up to someone."
Damon snorted. Things were never so easy. And he had already used up his first impression with every person who mattered, most of the time in a bad way.
"Maybe I don't want friends."
"Everybody does. And what about your friend, Jenna's boyfriend?"
Yes, he had a friend. Never said he wanted one, though.
To speak the truth, he wanted friends. As much as anybody. But he wouldn't admit it out loud.
"Alaric?"
"He's a good guy, isn't he?"
The vampire thought about lying for a while, but he didn't feel like it. He was tired of finding excuses for his awful behavior. He was tired of blaming everything on the teacher.
It was his fault as well, even if he didn't understand why or how.
"Ric is way more than a good guy! He's awesome, terrifying, potentially dangerous as hell, but he stays calm when I snap and yell at me when I don't. He knows exactly when to talk and when not to and he doesn't care about what I want but he does care about what I need. He's funny, but never morbid as any of my few vampire friends were. He's afraid of nothing in the damn world, but knows there are things that are way stronger than he is and that's exactly why he's so dangerous. He doesn't fear to inflict pain or death, even though he doesn't like to. He's not bothered by blood, corpses or body parts, which is freaking awesomely gross. And yet he has feelings, is capable of anger, joy, sadness, embarassment, as any man. He's perfectly human for such a cold-blooded fighter. Weak. Strong. Young like a kid. Old from to many injustices."
When he shut up, Damon felt there was something odd with the way he had been talking about his best friend. Faster and faster, as if he was afraid he wouldn't be able to finish what he had begun. As if somewhere in his brain, something was willing to stop him before he went too far, ready to go off the very moment he'd cross the Rubicon.
But the vampire didn't know which Rubicon it was all about.
Andie looked at him without saying a word for what seemed like an eternity. She had obviously heard it, the wavering in his voice. And she looked like she knew what it was due to.
When she talked, she said something pretty unbelievable.
"You love him."
Damon was so astonished he didn't even manage to come up with a snarky comment.
"What?! No!"
There was no way he was in love with Ric. Seriously, even the fact that he gave the hypothesis a second of attention was ridiculous. And the man was... well, a man.
"Damon, be honest with yourself for once. Your voice was shaking, you described every single thing you like about his personnality, you're being horrible to him because you don't know what to do with your feelings, and you're being atrocious to pretty much anyone else because you don't get to spend time with him anymore, and he's seriously hot."
Of course Alaric was hot. Damon didn't let just anyone in his vicinity. Ugly people were not allowed near him. It would have tarnished his brilliance.
What the hell was he mumbling about already?
"If you think he's hot, why don't you try dating him yourself?"
And why the hell was he being a jerk?
Bloody hell.
Because he was one.
That was his way of dealing with things he didn't want to be concerned about.
It had always been his way of dealing with things he didn't want to be concerned about.
Andie didn't react to his nastiness. She had surely expected it. Instead, she only put her jacket on. She had to go to work, unlike him. Just before she shut the door, she winked at him.
"He's Jenna's. I wouldn't even dare to think about it."
And so what? If she wasn't supposed to, why would he be?
"And I like bad boys better."
So she saw him as a bad boy. Well, that wasn't exactly a surprise. After all, he was one.
The vampire listened to her walking into the corridor, downstairs, then he heard the front door shutting. She was gone.
This woman was really messing with his head. Nearly as much as Ric did. But she did it on purpose, when the hunter didn't even have an idea of how much his friendship was affecting him.
Damon put clothes on, and then just stayed here, in his room.
Him, in love with Alaric Saltzman?
What a joke!
Sitting on his bed, he heard a loud knock on the front door.
