I'm so sorry. I won't write anymore if you don't want me to ( go on dreaming about that ).

But it was so tempting, I had to do it.


Adjusting to our reality, part 14: Damon's undead heart

Alaric was upset.

Lately, Damon had been avoiding him like the plague.

In fact, the vampire's plan was a bit more complicated than that, but in the end, the teacher could still see through it, so it was all the same. Damon was avoiding him. To be precise, he was acting the same way he had been before the hunter had tried to kill him and ended up dead instead, so that Ric would be the one avoiding him.

Too bad, jackass, it wasn't working.

If he still couldn't figure out why his best friend wanted Ric to hate him, he knew it was all on purpose. And he knew that the vampire wasn't happy about it at all. And usually, that meant Damon didn't want him to be involved in something dangerous or stupid. Or something dangerously stupid. Or stupidly dangerous.

And, really, if that wasn't the case, then Ric had an idiot who rejected happiness as a best friend.

So when he knocked on the door of the Salvatore, he was upset as hell.

The fact that when Damon opened the door, the vampire made a face, didn't help him to calm down any.

"Yes, it's me. No, I won't go away, or fuck off, or anything that involves leaving you sulking alone in this house when you clearly don't want to talk to me."

And he fought his way inside.

"So, now what?"

The vampire had his sulking-face on, and reluctantly looked him in the eyes.

"Don't you so-now-what me, Damon. If there is one thing I know, besides the fact that my life is fucked up, it's that you do shit when you don't want to talk to people. And as I decided to give you another chance at being a good guy, I'm not going to let you go down that road. And really, I don't want to stake you, seeing as you're my only male friend in the whole city."

Alaric crossed his arms, and waited.

Damon squinted his eyes.

He couldn't say he had expected that.

Ric seemed to be really angry at him, but not at all about what he should have been. He had even called him a friend. So, apparently, his plan had turned to turd. That he should have expected. Because the plan was shit to begin with. Still, one could always dream.

Now, the problem was that he still had no idea about what to do.

And there was the fact that Andie had seriously messed him up with her ridiculous theory.

"Fine, we'll talk."

Or he could kill Ric and leave him somewhere in the woods so that he'd wake up definitely furious with him. Better check that the man still had his ring, though, with John Gilbert in town and all. But, really, why hadn't he thought of that sooner?

Because he still wanted to have a friend, and couldn't bring himself to do something so irredeemable.

Rectification.

He still wanted the teacher to be his friend more than anything in his life.

"But I'll go get us glasses and a bottle of bourbon."

Damon had no idea what he would tell Alaric. But he knew he would need a lot of alcohol to do it.

The teacher watched him go. At least the vampire had agreed to talk with him. Even if he didn't look eager to. That was something. That also meant something could be said. They could talk and get over it.

Alaric let his eyes wander around the entrance.

The boarding house was enormous, he already knew that. The Salvatores were stinking rich, he already knew that too. And there was old and very interesting stuff all around the place, he also knew that already. Perfect place for an overly curious history teacher.

So he was only half surprised to find a nineteenth century sword in the umbrella holder.

Damon should really learn to tidy up a bit.

But the teacher heard the sound of the main door being opened, turned around, felt a sharp pain in his stomach and almost collapsed.

But the assailant didn't know who his victim was. What was the secret behind his family name. A single blow to the guts couldn't really take him down. Not so fast at least.

Alaric really hoped that the one who had attacked him wasn't human, or he'd be in deep shit.

Because he was definitely going to die.

And he didn't have time to think about it.

The hunter unsheathed the sword forthright. The blade made its way to the figure he couldn't distinguish, his vision blurred as hell. And it stuck in something.

The resistance was enough. He knew it was flesh.

The effort was difficult to make, but Alaric raised his head and squinted to try and see better.

It wasn't only flesh.

He had stabbed the man right in the neck, and blood was overflowing from the wound.

Ric felt a hand twisting his arm into letting go of the sword, but he wouldn't. Killing was really one of the things he did best, and for once, he wouldn't feel sorry about it. He had a bloody smile, pushed the weapon deeper into his killer's throat and died.

Damon saw the werewolf fall on the ground, but that was so not what he was concerned about that his eyes were for the dead form on the floor only, the one with light brown hair and blue eyes.

The vampire didn't notice the werewolf who came after him until it was too late, and next thing he knew he was tied to a chair in his own living room. Well, tied was a soft word. Tied didn't usually imply wooden nails and stakes and whatever.

There was something like five werewolves in his living room. Not exactly the kind of guests he was used to. Six, what with the dead one that had been laid on the couch with precaution. Or, he hoped this one was a werewolf too, so that Ric wouldn't be dead-dead.

Alaric really did a good job for a man stabbed and dying.

Apparently, Damon wasn't the only one to think that.

One of the uninvited guests was squatting in front of the dead history teacher, boiling with rage.

"He was abnormally strong for a human. Like, first-class product."

And yes, no human should have been able to hinder one of them. But the man, although dying at the time, had managed to stop them from pulling the blade out of their friend's neck before he died from blood loss. And this was so not to the werewolf's liking that he suggested to cut the corpse into pieces to avenge the deceased.

That wasn't good news. Ric had a wonderful ring – or at least Damon hoped he still had it – but nothing could be certain with magic, and the vampire wouldn't bet one buck that a dismembered Alaric Saltzman could actually be brought back to life.

He was almost glad when Jules – because it was her, the loathsome werewolf who had killed Rose – said that they weren't savages and even though they were beasts, that didn't give them the right to play with corpses, that it was disgusting and that Stevie should better not offer any other idea that fell into this category. But as she ended her speech by saying they had some vampiric torture to do, Damon wasn't going to say thanks. Being the only vampire in the house, as Stefan was as always flirting elsewhere with Elena, who was supposed to be the victim was kind of obvious to him.

And there she went asking him about things he didn't know the answer to, inquiring things he wouldn't ever answer to, threatening him to let Stevie torture him some more, finally letting the werewolf do his shit.

And still the vampire wouldn't talk.

Not that giving in wasn't tempting, but hell, he wasn't even thinking about the way the sadistic werewolf was pushing wooden nails into in flesh.

All he could see was Alaric's dead body on the carpet. The blood that had run down his mouth when his internal organs had been pierced. The lack of life in his eyes. How he had been discarded unceremoniously on the floor, just so that his corpse wouldn't be in the middle of the entrance.

All he couldn't see was whether or not his best friend still had the ring on his finger.

Fucking John Gilbert. If the hunter stayed dead because of him, Damon would rip his head off. Once all of the fucking assholes in the room would have been taken care of, obviously.

What was he going to do if Ric was definitely dead?

Distress, fear, hatred, rage.

Sadness, anxiety, despair, regret.

The pain he endured when Stevie staked him in the leg was nothing. Nothing compared to the terror that was seizing his heart at the thought that maybe Alaric Saltzman was gone for good. Nothing compared to the hollowness that would become of his heart if once again he was to be left behind.

Nothing.

The werewolf had no idea how much anger was ravaging the vampire's mind.

This much pain was nothing.

All he knew was that he didn't want to only have memories of Ric. He wanted time with the teacher, he wanted to see him alive and kicking – and killing, because Team Badass. He wanted to witness every single second of the hunter's life. Alaric laughing. Alaric talking. Alaric smiling.

Holy shit.

Andie was right.

Damon was madly in love with his best friend.

It took him a while to process that someone else had entered the room.

Elijah mocked the werewolves, ripped some hearts out of their rightful owners, let Jules get away before freeing him. Elena's agreement with the Original had come in handy for once. Or twice?

It wasn't important. Damon rushed to the already cold corpse, and sighed in relief when he saw the familiar shape of the Gilbert ring on the teacher's finger.

The Original said something about how the vampire was abusing of his protection, but really, Damon wasn't sure he was listening to any of this.

"Well, if you're done here, you can go. I will just be waiting for Ric to wake up."

Elena apparently had told Elijah about the magic ring, because the Original didn't say a word. He also ignored the ungratefulness of the one he had saved, but that was mainly because he had heard distress in the young vampire's voice. Elijah wasn't sure what was going on, and didn't care, but he overlooked Damon's impertinence. The youngster was certainly not thinking straight at the time, and no matter what could be told about him, the Original was a merciful person. Up to some point.

So he left Damon and Alaric alone.

Or, more accurately, he left Damon alone with the hunter's stiff body.

Damon ran his fingers in Ric's hair. It was way softer than he had expected it to be.

How the hell he had ended up falling in love with this man was beyond him, but it was real.

Minutes passed by.

And the teacher wasn't coming back.

The first time Alaric had died, it had taken only a dozen of minutes for him to be alive again, according to Stefan. Now it had been nearly one hour.

Damon's undead heart was beating faster as time went by.

Why wasn't Ric waking up?

Fear clouded the vampire's mind.

He wasn't sure it was a good idea – actually, he was pretty sure it wasn't – but he did it nonetheless.

Damon bent over the corpse of the man he loved and looked him in the eyes.

Unfocused eyes.

The vampire's fingers were almost touching Alaric's skin, his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. They never really touched the body, the horribly-cold-as-death body, the tips of his fingers barely reaching the skin. Never even near enough to brush off the dust that had clung to the left side of Ric's face when one of the bastards had dragged him into the living room.

He would surely feel sorry for what he was about to do later on.

Damon leaned forward to softly kiss the hunter.

Tears fell on Alaric's face when he saw the lifeless eyes.

And the man rose from the dead.

Headbutt.

That was so not romantic.