I'd rather not say anything.
Let's just say that... Ric is angry at Damon.

set in 4x02


One world apart, part 2: Lonely

"'No, really, Alaric, you're getting worried for nothing, I tell you. Look at me! See? I'm alright! Perfectly so!'"

Ric stopped pinching his nose, and glared at the vampire he had been poorly-but-deliberately-so imitating. It wasn't as if Damon could hear him, anyway. Which meant that he couldn't see the dark look he and his glass of bourbon were at the end of either.

The hunter's ghost was currently sitting next to his – former? – boyfriend, right on the seat that "was taken". Damon, glass of bourbon in hand, was certainly moping right now, and it was starting to get on Ric's nerves. Badly. It had been more than a week since he had died, and there he was, stuck in ghost form, and watching one certain black-haired vampire brooding.

As much as he loved Damon and did not actually want him to just move on or anything – because well, it had been only nine days since he had died – Alaric was growing worried, and so, irritated, with his fool of a lover.

First, it had taken the guy one whole week and a shock treatment speech from Stefan to get the older Salvatore to leave Ric's apartment and start living again. If it could be called "living". And Ric wasn't thinking this because Damon was technically dead, so, you know, bad pun and all. No, it was simply that now that the vampire had walked the hell out of the loft – that wasn't even his, but Alaric's to begin with – the hunter had found out that Damon had done so only to get wasted at the Mystic Grill.

Second, Damon was starting his third bottle of alcohol. Ric knew. He had counted the glasses, and added up, those glasses amounted to two bottles and one third. Damon had been at the Grill for exactly thirty-two minutes and forty-seven seconds – forty-eight now – and he had already gulped down two bottles and a third of bourbon. And of tequila. The hunter had never seen the vampire drink tequila before, but apparently, there was no more bourbon, and Damon was too desperate to have a drink. Or several drinks, as it was.

Third, the vampire had been keeping Alaric a seat, waving off both the sheriff and Elena, when they had tried to talk to him. Sure, it was sweet. But it was also a bit creepy, considering that Damon had kept his corpse with him in the loft. Next thing he knew, Damon would take the body out on a date.

Well, maybe not, but the hunter was too angry with the self-destructive behavior of his boyfriend to be rational.

Alaric pointed his finger at the glass that was making its way to the vampire's mouth, a crooked smile on his face.

"Of course, Damon, there is absolutely no reason for me to worry! It's not as if you were slowly becoming a drunk. A drunker drunk than ever. A drunker drunk vampire who to get really drunk needs at least ten bottles of wine because his accelerated healing would normally keep him soberish!"

If there was a downside to being a ghost – besides the obvious, about being dead and all – it was that Ric was absolutely unable to interact with the world of the living. So he could shout or sneer at Damon all he wanted, the idiot wouldn't even know that he was there, watching him destroy himself slowly.

For the past days, he had been happy enough watching over his boyfriend, and occasionally the kids. At first, he had been more than satisfied that the vampire hadn't simply gone on a rampage and started murdering innocents once again. But this day, was too much.

It had been too long since he had begun to watch Damon act like the fool he was.

"'Ah, but, Ickle Rickykins, if I get drunk enough, maybe I will get hallucinations of you, and then, I'll be happy once again! Eh? What do you think of that, hum? Don't you want to talk to me again, Ickle Rickykins? That's a cute nickname, that, Ickle Rickykins! I shall keep it for later use, since I'm sure you hate it as hell and are wishing you could be making me stop saying it, Ickle Rickykins!'"

The ghost glared once more at his lover, even if the words had come from his brain and not from the vampire's. That was how angry he was.

The silent vampire put down his glass of alcohol, gazing at nothing in particular. He looked like the world had come to an end, but had forgotten to take him with the rest of humanity / whatever-the-big-group-of-humanoid-supernatural-beings-he-was-part-of-should-be-called.

Damon looked lonely.

Alaric sighed, knowing full well there was no point, aside from venting his anger at his helplessness, in continuing to pretend that the vampire could hear him and was making a fool of him. Though venting his frustration was a pretty good reason to do anything, if you'd ask him.

"And I'm definitely not making a fool of myself right now. You can't hear me, you can't see me, and you surely aren't thinking of calling me Ickle Rickykins in the future."

The hunter squinted at the imperturbable and sad face of his lover.

"Though if you are, I must warn you that I will find a way to haunt you more effectively. Like, nightmares and all the crap."

It was lucky for Ric that every ghost on the Other Side seemed to have their own "other side", so that they wouldn't see him act this foolisly.

Not that he knew that for sure. But for now, he hadn't seen anyone else, so unless they were avoiding him...

Ric rested his chin in his hand, elbow on the bar counter, readying himself to another half-hour of seeing the vampire he loved fall a bit more into despair.

Two minutes and six seconds had passed so, when a fiery red flash caught his attention near the main door of the Grill. The hunter turned around, searching for the colorful person that he suspected to be his cousin, through the slightly blurry mist of the Other Side.

Magdalena, for it was truly her, was making her way to them.

Or, more likely, to Damon, since Alaric doubted very much that she knew his ghost was here with the vampire-that-she-also-didn't-know-to-be-a-vampire.

The lawyer, with her red hair and her red suit, went to sit down onto the bar stool that her ghost of a cousin was currently using.

"The seat is taken..."

Damon's voice had stopped her, and the Falkenbach moved to another stool. Unlike Elena, she didn't go for the one on the other side of the vampire, but for the one next to Ric's. There was one empty bar-stool-that-wasn't-so-empty-but-how-would-they-know between them.

The young woman asked for a drink, and then looked at the dark haired man who had spoken. She remembered him from the day she had come into Mystic Falls. He was... He knew Ric, she was sure of it. Maybe he would know why he had disappeared so suddenly, without a word, only the excuse that "he had to go" that had been given to the school.

Even Landyn hadn't been able to tell were Alaric was, and that in itself was alarming. Landyn always knew where the members of the Saltzman family were, if only to keep an eye on their more disturbing habits. When one went off the radar, it usually meant trouble.

If such a thing happened to Alaric, it was more than disturbing. Her cousin wasn't one to be up to no good. He was dangerous, yes, maybe he was even the most dangerous of them all. But he wasn't dangerous as in easily tempted to act rashly. Ric was one of the moderate Saltzmans.

But such a thing had happened to Alaric, and so it was alarming.

If her cousin had gone off the radar...

Magdalena couldn't help but think that something had happened to him.

She closed her eyes for a minute, drinking her cognac. The more the young lawyer thought about it, the more she was convinced that she had to talk with this man, Damon... Salvatore. Yes, it was his name. She opened her eyes, and turned slightly to look at him.

He had several empty glasses before him, as if he had drunk more than one type of alcohol. He didn't look like he was drunk yet, but the smell said otherwise. Still, he behaved well, if a bit depressingly.

His voice had sounded very matter-of-fact, she mused, almost automatic.

As if he hadn't been really thinking as he had talked.

Maybe he was a sad drunk.

She wondered if it had anything to do with Ric's departure.

If it was actually a departure, and not one of the definitive sort.

"Who is it taken by?"

Damon turned his head slowly towards the woman who had talked to him, eventually remembering that she was Alaric's cousin from the freaking-cursed-family. He'd have to watch his tongue.

"It's Ric's."

He glanced mournfully at the empty seat, and looked back at his glass of bourbon.

"He should be here, but he's gone."

Gone, as in "dead", said ghost thought dryly. But hopefully, Mag wouldn't take it that way.

It was bad enough that when the two of them looked at each other, they were actually looking through him. 'Ever had people look at each other through you? No? Well, all you need to know is that it feels really, really awkward.

Magdalena, as it was, was a bit suspicious of the way Damon had talked, but not for a bad reason. The young woman ordered another cognac, and decided she would get as many answers as she could from this man, for she was certain there was more to it than he was saying.

After all, Alaric "should be here", but wasn't. The man had said it himself.

"You miss him?"

Damon raised a mildly disbelieving eyebrow at the hunter's cousin.

Said hunter winced as he took the full blow of that raised eyebrow. He definitely didn't like being looked through.

"Ric was the first friend I had in years. My best friend. More."

Unbeknown to the vampire and the living Falkenbach, the only dead Falkenbach in the Mystic Grill stiffened at that. There was so much suffering hidden in that last word.

He knew. He could hear it.

And from the look on Magdalena's face, she had heard it too.

The lawyer's voice was softer when she spoke again. She didn't want to be overheard, not in a little town such as Mystic Falls, not about what Damon Salvatore's tone implied. But it wasn't all. She didn't want to hurt him more than he already was.

If her cousin had found peace with this man, then so be it.

Magdalena had to rein in a shaky laugh, as she mused that maybe homosexuality was the solution to the family curse. If they all ended up with a partner of the same sex, there was no way they'd be able to pass on the curse to the next generation, since obviously, there wouldn't be a next generation.

It really wasn't the time to laugh about that.

"Do you know why he left?"

The young woman saw a painful grimace take over the man's features, and she decided not to prod too much yet. It still hurt, it was quite obvious.

After all, Alaric had left Mystic Falls, his work and his life. But it wasn't all that he had left behind.

This man too had been left behind.

Damon didn't answer, in the end, but after a time, and another glass of bourbon, he looked again at Magdalena Haguenhauer, the Falkenbach who had known Alaric for years.

"Tell me about him, please."

The young woman stayed speechless for half a minute, surprised, but eventually smiled warmly.

Ric's ghost, on the other hand, squinted at his cousin. He knew very well what she was doing.

Mag was definitely trying to get close to Damon, to make him talk. The only question was, was she doing it for her own knowledge, or because Landyn had asked her to? If not for Landyn specifically, maybe for the family in general? If it was the case, it did not bode well for the peace of the town, once she'd know for sure that there was something fishy about his "leaving".

Because if there was one thing the hunter was certain of, it was that, if his cousin had decided she'd get to the bottom of it, there was no way in hell or heaven that she wouldn't find out more than anyone would be comfortable with.

"Once, when Ric was three years old, his parents took him with them to the main house. My mother, his aunt, told me that after three hours of talking, Diane suddenly noticed that her son wasn't anywhere in sight. Everyone went to search for him, and they eventually found him behind a bush, looking in silence, eyes squinted, at a garden snake..."

Oh well, the ghost thought... If she managed to make Damon smile, he wasn't going to complain.