Ah, me and my irresistible urge to save people...
Each a monster, part 13: A speck of dust in his eye
Alaric had fallen asleep quickly after Caroline's visit, but he was awake at the first buzz from Damon's phone.
He had always been a light sleeper, and he suspected everyone in his family was. Once, when he had been six years old, someone had sent an assassin after Landyn to take her out, and the hitman had thought it a good idea to sneak up on her during her sleep. Clearly, it hadn't been. From what he had heard from the adults, his aunt had been awake at the very moment the man had put a foot on the floor. The young Ric had never known what had happened to the man after that, but he was certain the police hadn't been called.
Sending an assassin after the Saltzmans was one of the dumbest things to do. Each of them was as dangerous as a professional hitman. And Alaric had a sneaking suspicion that every Falkenbach had always had a slightly more efficient body than the average. Theodoric, for example, was way stronger than one could believe given his slender stature, and Landyn had not half the muscular mass needed with her strength. Himself, he had a good stature, athletic enough, but not exagerated, and yet he could take down opponents way more versed in physical activities, though he usually relied more on his speed and precision.
Anyway, he spent most of his nights in a semi-slumber, unless he was very tired.
And the phone buzzing was more than enough to wake him up.
Still, Alaric decided not to move. If it didn't concern him, he could as well go back to sleep. And his own cellphone hadn't buzzed, so it didn't concern him.
Damon, on the other hand, picked up his phone and asked with a half-sleeping voice who it was.
He didn't like the answer, as he stiffened next to Ric, but the hunter thought his boyfriend would wake him if he needed him. If it was only about a vampire running amok in Mystic Falls, Damon knew better than to deprive him of sleep. They had traveled through most of the nearby states, they had sneaked on a crime scene during the afternoon, and he would have to deal with Theo starting tomorrow.
So, Alaric had had enough for now.
And Damon knew that. If it was serious enough, he would wake him. If not, the vampire would deal with it alone.
Ric heard the vampire mumbling at the phone, he felt him kissing lightly his cheek, and he heard the door being shut. That certainly meant he could go back to sleep.
Damon saw the crowd on the ground floor, and decided he had no time for that, so he simply jumped from the nearest window onto the grass. No one had seen him, and if they had, they'd think they had had too much to drink at the party.
As he left the boarding house, he wondered if it would have been better to ask Alaric to come with him. But Stefan had said to come alone, or Andie would pay. And Andie was his friend.
Anyway, he wasn't going to kill Stefan, unless he really had to, and Alaric and himself were better at killing people than at keeping people alive. Ric couldn't really help him with this one. Or he hoped he couldn't, because if he could and having thought he couldn't led to Andie's death, Damon wouldn't forgive himself for that.
How had all this happened? Why had Stefan gotten Andie involved in their vampiric problems?
Because no matter what Damon said, he still cared about the woman. Hell, she was one of his rare friends, with Elizabeth Forbes, and that was something.
When the vampire arrived at Andie's workplace, the lights were off and no one was here. But he could hear whispers and crying from the tv set studio.
Damon went in.
A light went on.
And the vampire couldn't see a thing.
He called out for Stefan, who was just behind the projector.
Damon sighed. Dealing with blood-addict-Stefan was never a funny thing to do. There was a lot of bickering, and the oldest brother had sometimes the impression he was dealing with his own emotionless self. No need to say, his own emotionless self was a bastard, and dealing with him was a hassle.
Actually, he didn't have the chance to deal with his blood-addict brother, since Stefan simply threatened him, showed him where Andie was, and ordered her to jump to her death before disappearing.
The vampire paled, and rushed to the falling Andie, but not matter what he did, he knew it was too late, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop her fall. He knew, she was going to die.
There was a loud and terrible noise, the clatter of bones breaking, the sound of flesh torn with the shock, and then nothing else happened. Damon stayed dumbfounded, staring at the space where Andie's body should have been, but he could only see some blood on the floor.
There was no body.
How could there be no body? When people died, weren't they supposed to leave lifeless bodies behind them? Why wasn't there a body?
So the vampire was standing there, in a tv studio, and looking at a little pool of blood on the floor. It was almost as if Stefan hadn't come and condamned Andie to her death, it seemed like it had all been a nightmare. Had it been a nightmare?
Damon looked around, not really seeing. He went around the room, not really caring. He listened to the silence, not really hearing. No matter what the truth was, this wasn't it.
Andie wasn't dead, because if she was, there would have been a body.
Suddenly, anger rose in his heart, and he knew he had had enough. Stefan, Stefan, always Stefan! Stefan the dear child, Father's favorite, Katherine's favorite, Elena's favorite! Stefan, the one who had friends, the vampire upon whom one could depend. Stefan Salvatore the good, the bright, the nice, Saint Stefan of all things! Why was he running away from his friends, from the girl who loved him? Damon never had any real friends. No one who really loved him! And was he running away?!
No.
The vampire calmed down.
He had Alaric. He was Ric's favorite, not Stefan. He was starting to get along with Caroline, even if that was a bit awkward. He was friend with Liz, strange as it sounded.
And Stefan had to deal with the crazy Niklaus, to protect Elena. It wasn't an easy job, he mused. So he could understand, if he couldn't approve of Stefan's doing.
Still, he didn't like that his little brother was out killing his friends. It was supposed to be his job! He was the evil and heartless and horrible vampire brother. Not Stefan. Stefan was supposed to be the kind, caring vampire brother.
All this was because of Klaus.
Damon made up his mind. Klaus didn't want him to get his little brother back? Fair enough. But when Stefan would be freed from the Original, he'd make sure to make Klaus' life a living hell. Be it in three decades or three centuries. He was certain he could come up with something involving wolfsbane and vervain. Like, spicking everything and everyone the bastard would possibly drank from. He'd do it in a way no one would ever knew what happened, and...
Right.
Now wasn't the time for his mad rambling.
Damon was feeling a bit better, now that he had pinned the responsibility of everything wrong that had happened in his life on Klaus. It wasn't even such an exageration, afer all, his life had been ruined by vampires. And by Katherine. Who was a vampire. And vampires had appeared with the Originals. So, blaming an Original for all the shit in his life wasn't so stupid.
Damon let himself fall on the floor, not far away from Andie's handbag. When his eyes fell on the purse, he felt bad again.
Andie had died. And mostly because of him. He didn't know how her body had disappeared, but maybe he had only been denying the truth, somehow, and maybe, if he looked to the pool of blood he'd see a body. Maybe he wasn't exactly in his right mind.
He didn't dare to look.
Instead, the vampire reached for the bag. Maybe she had pictures in it? Damon felt like looking at his deceased friend's pictures.
When he pulled the handbag to himself, Damo heard a metallic sound and frowned. He searched the bag, and his hand touched something cold. Intrigued, he grabbed it.
The vampire paled when he recognized the mirror he had given the journalist, and felt like his stomach was rolling over his other internal organs when he noticed it was open. Hope made its way to his brain. It was a grim, sinister, unpleasant kind of hope, but it was still hope.
Could the mirror have protected Andie, as it had protected Rose? Was it why there wasn't a body?
What had Bonnie said about the mirror? He couldn't remember.
Wasn't it something about taking in the essence of a person? Or was it about taking in the essence of a dying person? Was there any way it could have worked even without being activated by a witch? Or was it only working on a supernatural being?
Damon was literally all over the place, hoping, fearing what would be the answers to his questions. Was there any chance that Andie had, somehow, survived Stefan's uncalled-for stunt?
He took a look at the pocket mirror.
When he had asked Andie to keep it with her, he hadn't thought about all that. He hadn't wondered if it would protect her too, seeing as she was a human, and there wasn't a witch with her to ensure everything went smoothly if she ever were to die. The only thing he had wondered about, was whether or not the mirror could handle a second essence to bear.
The vampire's fears were confirmed when he could only see his own reflection in the damned mirror.
But Andie's body was nowhere to be seen, and he couldn't see Rose in the mirror either.
There had to be an explanation.
Andie couldn't really be dead.
Or could she?
He felt a pang in chest, and said nothing.
Andie was dead. Gone. For good.
Damon snorted, and tried to laugh it off as a minor inconvenience. Soon enough, he stopped trying, for he didn't feel like it. There was no one here, so why was he pretending?
Who was he kidding? Even he had feelings. Even more now that he was happy. Before Alaric, he would have acted as if he didn't care, and, truthfully, he might not have cared much. After Alaric...
The vampire closed the pocket mirror, and at that exact moment, when he saw the mirror in a certain angle, his heart missed a beat. Carefully, cautiously, he opened it again, slowly, so slowly that he could get a glimpse of every angle the mirror would be in.
At some point, two faces smiled at him.
Rose and Andie.
Damon hoped they'd get along. Surely they would. After all, they had put up with him.
The vampire closed the pocket mirror before they could see the tear falling down his left cheek. He knew he had a speck of dust in his eye, but they wouldn't believe him. Frankly, he himself didn't believe him. A speck of dust his ass.
A speck of dust it would be.
Damon cleaned the tv studio, picked up Andie's belongings, and went back to the boarding house. There, he saw Elena, who was angrily waving some photograph at him, but he told her to shut up after a while and walked away. He had a pretty good idea of where the picture came from, but wasn't inclined to comfort the young woman now that he had told her it wasn't about Klaus' murders, but her beloved's. After all Stefan had done this very evening, he wasn't in any mood to listen to a list of all the things Klaus would have to pay for once she'd have her boyfriend back.
The vampire knew there was no hope for the current, ripper Stefan. Not for now, at least.
So he went upstairs, let Andie's things in a cupboard, but kept the pocket mirror with him.
When he saw Ric sleeping peacefully, he smiled a bit more and put the mirror on his bedside table.
It was time to sleep. So he did.
Alaric said nothing, didn't open his eyes when his boyfriend came in. But he knew.
Rose and Andie were talking, watching over the two men from the mirror hanging on the back wall of the bedroom. Of course, they could only be seen from a certain angle, and no one could hear them.
