Each a monster, part 27: Didn't want, couldn't bear, wouldn't hear
"History teacher in need of a hug. Make up so that you can make out."
The vampire snorted at the text he had just received from Vampire Barbie. She had been harassing him with those for days, now, but each time Damon saw Alaric, he remembered the dead look in the man's eyes, and he chickened out. Not so glorious, coming from Damon Salvatore, you might say. That didn't make it any less true.
Damon rolled on his left side in his bed, and attempted to sleep, once again. Sleep was the only thing that could get his mind off his once-but-not-anymore-because-of-his-own-damn-fault lover, and he couldn't sleep anymore – because he had already slept for hours – but sure as hell he tried.
Well, there was alcohol, too, and blood, that could have helped him. But he didn't trust himself not to react the way he usually did and go on a rampage because he wasn't happy with how the story was turning out. If he did, he'd surely lose the rare friends he had made this time, a luxury he hadn't had for a long time.
The vampire wasn't ready to lose Stefan, Elena, even Caroline, not when he had already lost Alaric.
His cellphone rang once again, and Damon grunted in discontentement as he rolled back on his right side, his hand searching blindly for the damned device of hell.
If it was another text from Caroline, he'd throw it away, hoping it would break.
Opening a reluctant eye, Damon held the phone's screen near his face, and suddenly he was bolting out of bed.
He got clothed in the blink of an eye, typing Elena's number already, calling back in a hurry.
"Elena, what the hell do you mean 'Alaric is going to the hospital'?!"
"Jeremy was compelled, and... and there was this car... and... and..."
The girl's voice sounded strangled, a bit distant too, as if there was something making noise behind her, and disrupting the call. It sounded an awful lot like an ambulance siren. Damon guessed she was about to break down, and calmed down a bit.
"I'm sorry, Elena, I shouldn't have screamed. Now, take a deep breath, and tell me what happened. I'm on my way."
The vampire searched frantically for his car's key, and listened as Elena more or less managed to tell him how exactly Ric had gotten himself ran over by a car, killed in the process, resurrected as a result and packed up to the city hospital.
"And, I don't know, Damon, but it's taking more and more time each time for him to be... to be revived, and this time he was only partially healed. I mean, his limbs were back in place and all, but Ric still had one rib broken and pushing on his stomach, and he was bleeding from there too, and I'm really, really worried about what happens next time he dies! I... I don't want to lose him too, Damon!"
As her observations matched his owns, the vampire paled, remembering how two of these deaths were actually his fault, and the later had been totally uncalled for. He didn't say anything about her assumption that, one way or another, the teacher would end up dying again, because he knew too well it was more than probable. With the Original Bastard in town, things could only turn out bad, and for Alaric, "bad" was always synonymous to "dead".
The vampire did his best to comfort the young woman over the phone, once again assuring her he was on his way and would soon be there.
When he finally parked next to the hospital, Damon rushed to the reception, rushed to Ric's room, and eventually rushed to the teacher's side.
The man was still unconscious.
"Damon..."
He turned to look at Elena, who looked so distressed he was certain she was his perfect copy at the moment, even if they looked nothing alike.
"What did they say?"
"He's gonna be alright, but I think it'd be best if you handled the sheriff deputy... They know you, and they won't think twice about it if you say the accident had to do with the V word..."
The vampire frowned, and then understood.
"Ah... Yeah, Ric has been ran over by a car, it's only normal the sheriff department wants to catch the culprit... Why don't you just tell them what the car looked like, and be done with it?"
Elena's eyes darted to her silent brother, sitting moodily on a chair in the corridor, and she winced a bit.
"The thing is, they already have the car. The hybrid Klaus had... ordered to kill Jeremy stopped not far away, and waited for Ric to come back to life, and he called off the ambulance with compulsion... He was trying to get us to invite us in, and if we didn't... But in the end, Jer beheaded him. With a butcher knife. We couldn't exactly let the body just outside the door, so we moved it in the cellar before the ambulance came back."
Damon closed his eyes, processing informations with an incredulous look on his face.
Then he turned to look at the brooding teenager outside the room.
Then he turned back to look at Elena.
"Your brother beheaded a hybrid with a butcher knife?"
The young woman nodded gravely and pointed out that the hybrid had been weakened at the time.
"Jer had wounded him with one of Ric's crossbows before that."
"Your brother shot a hybrid with a bolt?"
She nodded again.
Damon pursed his lips, feeling the beginning of a headache.
"I see... I'll take care of your uninvited visitor's body later. Meanwhile, mind your brother. You might want to convince him to move out... To go to a sunnier, funnier place, with less Originals hell bent on killing him to make an example... I'll take care of Alaric."
The girl looked relieved, but before leaving, she shot him a meaningful glance.
"I'll be alright. I don't think his order for me to stay away from him stands in this situation."
But once Elena and Jeremy were gone, and the vampire found himself alone with an unconscious history teacher / all-kinds-of-monsters-hunter-because-"vampire-hunter"-was-becoming-too-specific-an-expression-for-what-he-did / cursed man / former boyfriend, Damn began to feel nervous about what was going to happen.
Ric needed help, that much was certain, but would he be willing to let the vampire help?
So Damon didn't wake the man up just now, and he simply stared at him, hesitant.
Alaric was pale, way too pale, and the vampire didn't like that. For a human, pale could be a sign of death, and for the teacher, that was exactly what it was. He had died, once again.
Once more.
Damon stood there, saying nothing, next to the hospital bed that held Alaric's unconscious form. He watched the man seemingly sleeping, and he wondered if there was even a chance Ric would not die once too often.
One last death.
And then Ric would disappear.
And then Ric would leave him alone.
That's when it hit him, like a slap in the face.
No matter what happened, in the end, Alaric would leave him. He'd grow old, and die, and leave him behind. And Damon had known all along, but somehow, he had forgotten along the way.
Something tumbled down in Damon's heart.
He reached for the teacher's cheeks, trembling a bit, not knowing why, yet knowing why, not so sure of anything, just that he didn't want, couldn't bear, wouldn't hear of it. His fingertips brushed lightly against Ric's face, and he felt in this single touch, all that was between them: something undescriptible, something faint, something marvelous, something incredible, something fragile, something so strong and weak at the same time, it seemed it could explode anytime, just because of this contradiction.
Alaric's skin was hot – as in alive – but cold – as in not as hot as it should have been.
And the vampire wondered if, in a way, he could get the teacher to accept to become colder – and completely dead, true, but still, more alive than ever, because being alive, wasn't it, in the end, not to be dead and buried?
Damon himself was dead, but he was far from buried, and wasn't it all that mattered?
The vampire bent over the man he loved, and, face to face, he silently asked the hunter if he loved him enough to become a prey for him.
Of course, Alaric didn't answer: he was sleeping, or unconscious, or somewhere in between.
Damon sighed, defeated.
He knew Ric wouldn't agree, or at least, not so easily, not when they were at odds with each other, not when everything was so uncertain between them. But at least, the teacher would never accuse him of asking to put away his humanity. The Falkenbach had been clear about that: he might have been human when Damon wasn't, but he was as much of a monster as the vampire was. Humanity wasn't something he could put away, at least, not the humanity a person lost when they turned. Alaric didn't have any humanity of this kind to put away.
He was a Falkenbach, and a Falkenbach couldn't put their humanity on hold. They didn't have any.
When he breathed on the teacher's face, Damon saw a shiver running down Ric's skin.
A smirk twisted his lips, and he decided to put the indecision away, for some time at least.
The Sleeping Beauty was about to wake up, and Damon, as any respectable Damon Salvatore would do, vamped out and whispered in Alaric's ear.
"This one seems unconscious. He'd certainly wouldn't care if I stole some delicious blood from him, now, would he?"
And with that, he leaned closer to the man's neck.
Suddenly, a hand was gripping his throat in a firm hold. Damon smiled widely and withdrew himself a bit, just enough to see two blue eyes staring at him as if to make a hole in his brain.
"We agreed there would be no biting without consent."
Ah, right, that rule. But it wasn't as if they were sleeping together anymore, so how would such consent come about, now?
Anyway, it wasn't as if Damon had actually intended to take a sip.
"You're creepy. You were sleeping peacefully, and one second later, you're strangling me while watching me with wide-open eyes. I feel like I'm in a horror movie."
"And you're a freak who drinks people's blood, and first thing I hear upon waking up is you joking about my jugular. I'm the one who can believe he's in a horror movie. And now that we stated the obvious, is there anything else you'd want to tell me, Damon?"
The fact the hunter hadn't already tried to kill him and hadn't even reminded him of his stay-away order gave hope to the vampire, and Damon didn't need much more. He bit his lower lip, and then crushed his mouth against Ric's, forcing his kiss and his blood on the hunter.
Alaric gasped at first, surprised, but eventually relented, and responded pretty well to the kiss.
There definitely was hope for them, the vampire thought with content.
When they broke away, Alaric was once again all bloody around the mouth, and he wondered why exactly he always ended up bloodied in some fashion when he and the vampire shared a moment.
Oh right. Vampire. That explained it all.
"I guess that was my medication for the remaining wounds?"
Damon grinned. He really had a devious smile, and that definitely wasn't good for Ric's heart.
"Your guess is correct. Now, I suggest you clean yourself up, because you're bloody, you mischievous brat, and you go back to sleep for one or two hours, because you need it. I'll compel the doctors and talk to the sheriff department."
Alaric raised an eyebrow at the "mischievous brat" comment, but agreed to Damon's plan, and the vampire watched him fall back into sleep.
But as he hadn't any history teacher left to mess with, the vampire soon went back to thinking about asking Ric to turn, and it wasn't a thought he enjoyed, fearing the outcome of such a suggestion. He left quickly, and on the way back to his car, he saw Theodoric Saltzman watching him.
The young man spoke softly as the vampire passed by, but it was still meant for him to hear, even if Theo didn't know about his enhanced hearing.
"A Saltzman is never accidentally ran over by a car. Our reflexes are too good to allow that to happen. And it can only mean one thing: someone did it intentionally... Landyn won't like that."
