One world apart, part 12: "Hi, Love."
Ariane brought the nexus ring to her mouth and exhaled a soft breath onto it. The center of the red stone turned black, but not its borders.
The grim reaper observed the ring for a few seconds, a satisfied look on her face, then she handed it to Damon.
"You'll see him as soon as you'll wear it. Now, if you excuse me..."
And she made her way to the door, visibly not keen on spying onto the two lovers' reunion.
Damon stared for a moment at the ring in his hand, dumbfounded, but the sound of the front door being opened startled him out of his daze. The vampire sought Ariane with his eyes, but only managed to get a glimpse of her retreating back.
"Thanks!"
He had blurted out the word without really thinking, but as he realized what he had just said, Damon felt that no other words could have been more appropriate.
Alone once again in the boarding house, but not for long he hoped, Damon tentatively put the nexus ring on. He kept his eyes closed as he did so, half-afraid that Ariane had just made a fool out of him, or that it hadn't worked, and, in the end, he wouldn't see Ric when he'd open his eyes.
The ghost watched as the vampire stayed there, ring on a finger of his right hand, but unable to open his eyes and just verify whether or not he could now see him.
After a moment, though, Alaric got fed up with the wait. He walked to the vampire, and stopped just behind him, glancing at the ring above Damon's shoulder.
"Come on, Damon, open your bloody eyes. There's not point in stalling..."
Ariane had not said that they could hear each other, though she had specified that they would be able to see each other thanks to the nexus ring. Maybe that was why Ric hadn't expected Damon to react to his voice. Or maybe it was only because he had spent so much time not being heard, except by Jeremy, that he hadn't realized.
Damon's eyes shot open, and the vampire turned on his heels to face the source of that voice which he knew so well, but hadn't been able to hear for so long. The two lovers found themselves staring into the other's wide-open eyes, their faces only a few inches apart.
Damon's ice-blue eyes couldn't look away from Ric's gentle-blue ones, as if he couldn't be sure of what he was seeing.
Not really surprising when he remembered the many dreams he had had where he'd see him again.
But there, at least, he could be sure this was real. In none of his dreams Damon could make out Ric's face clearly. It was always a bit blurry, or when it wasn't, the vampire had a feeling it wasn't quite right, that this line shouldn't be here, but there, that the jaw was a bit too smooth, the nose not straight enough. Same things with the colors. It wasn't exactly the right blue, the skin tone was never as it should be...
He knew, in these dreams, that it wasn't Alaric, because it looked like him, without truly being him. And he feared that he just couldn't remember exactly how Ric was supposed to be.
The ghost took a step back, uncertainty visible on his face.
"Hi, Damon."
The vampire croaked a laugh, taking back the step Alaric had put between them.
"Hi, love."
But Ric stepped back once again, as if aware of something that had escaped Damon's notice, something that would possibly kill the incredible joy he was feeling right now.
The vampire didn't like it, and stepped forward once more, the look on his face clearly a challenge for the ghost to step back once again, for him to keep his distance even when it wasn't what either of them wanted.
"Damon, stop it."
"Why would I!?"
His tone was aggressive, filled with all the frustration from the preceding weeks of loneliness. He had yearned to hear this voice, to see this face, to touch this person. And now that he had been granted his first two wishes, he'd have to back down for the third one? Never!
Damon didn't care that Alaric was dead. The vampire too was technically dead. He didn't care that no one but him – and Ariane and Jeremy, true, but they didn't count – could see the ghost. His relationship was for him only, and not to be seen by others. He didn't care that Ric wasn't really here, living on the same plane as him. He was there, and it was good enough.
So what if it wasn't healthy, being in love with a ghost? Damon had never lived a healthy life. Murdering people, holding a century-old grudge towards his brother and pinning after Katherine for all these years had been far from healthy.
At least Alaric made him a better person, unlike Katherine.
But the sad look in Ric's eyes quickly quenched his anger.
A knot formed in the vampire's stomach. He didn't know what was the matter, but he could clearly see that the ghost wasn't rejecting him out of choice. There was a problem, and he had the feeling he would find out at one point or another. Ric was trying to postpone the discovery, but...
But it wouldn't change the facts.
"Do you really want to know why?"
No, he didn't. But facts and wishes never worked well together, or at least not for him.
"Go on. I'll know soon enough, anyway, won't I? Better to get rid of my hopes right away."
Alaric never ceased to smile, even if his smile was sad, as his hand moved up to the vampire's face. Something sorrowful flickered in the ghost's eyes, and the tips of his fingers touched Damon's face delicately. The vampire's body suddenly felt heavy, as if an anvil had been hidden in both of his feet all this time, and he had failed to notice until now. Ric's hand slithered to his chin, and then fell back to the ghost's side.
Then the smile died.
Damon reached for Alaric's face, as if for confirmation, but he already knew.
How could he have forgotten?
"I am still dead, Damon."
No matter how the vampire tried to feel something, as his fingers touched Ric's cheek, there was nothing. It was as if he was caressing thin air. Ric was there, but he wasn't here. He had no materiality. He had no body. Damon couldn't feel a thing, no skin, no body heat, not even some kind of wrongness or of coldness at touching a ghost.
"I am still a ghost."
Alaric wasn't here, even if it looked like he was.
Damon tried to think positively. He should have guessed that even Ariane couldn't make his life an eternal sunrise. She was a grim reaper, not an angel or a god. This nexus ring was enough of a gift already. At least, now he could see and speak with Ric. It was better than before.
So the vampire hid his heartache, and pulled a mischievous grin on his features. Immediately, Alaric squinted at him, suspicious.
"Alright! No need to dwell on what can't be changed. I..."
Damon stopped talking as he heard the sound of the front door being opened. Stefan and Elena's voices could be heard, and the vampire's grin turned from mischievous to calculating.
Before he could say anything else, though, Ric sent him a pointed look.
"I believe you have to apologize for inconsiderate behavior."
"Do I?"
Damon's innocent face having grown more than ineffective over the time they had known each other, Alaric didn't even bother to glare, only continuing with the pointed look. The vampire sighed, shrugged, rolled his eyes, and made up a sorry face before turning to look at the two who had entered the room. Still, he muttered one last thing towards his personal ghost.
"Of course I do. Who do you think I am? Wait, don't answer that."
Then, looking Elena in the eyes, he apologized profusely, before asking if, maybe, he could use the Gilbert family lake house, just the time for him to sort out his feelings, with the added benefit that he wouldn't be there bothering his brother and her. Elena hesitated a bit, obviously searching for the catch. Damon refrained from rolling his eyes once more; the girl knew him too well, but this time, if he had hidden motives, it wasn't anything bad. Eventually she relented, hoping nothing too terrible would come out of it.
Damon grinned so much as he left the boarding house that it didn't reassure neither Elena nor Stefan, and that Alaric stared suspiciously at him before disappearing, already heading for the lake house... and dreading what was to come. With Damon, one was never too cautious.
But when the vampire arrived at the lake house, he only had groceries with him. A long way from the damonic plan the ghost had been anticipating.
"What are you planning to do with that, exactly?"
The vampire eyed him as if he had lost his mind, before giving a simple answer.
"Cooking."
"Good, I was worried you were planning on making a sacrifice to the spirits of dead witches with a frozen chicken. No, really, Damon, what are you planning?"
The vampire stopped cutting said frozen chicken just the time to look up at the ghost who was leaning against the kitchen island, next to him. He smiled mysteriously, and went back to cooking.
"You'd like to know, wouldn't you?"
So Alaric was reduced to watch bemusedly as Damon occasionally grinned at the chicken he was cooking. Saying it wasn't a bit disturbing would be a lie. It was utterly strange, and the ghost just couldn't bring himself not to believe there was something fishy about Damon's behavior.
Of course, when the vampire started putting candles everywhere and set a table for two, the mystery started to uncover.
Around a quarter to ten, Ric found himself sitting on a chair, eye to eye with Damon, as the vampire served the wine in their glasses. The ghost really didn't know what to say at this point, and it only became worse when a plate of spaghetti bolognese was put before him.
"You realize I can't eat nor drink, don't you?"
Damon smiled a bit. He hadn't let his eyes off his lover, ghostly as he was, since he had begun eating, even if sometimes he almost missed his plate and stabbed at the table as a result. Luckily, he had enough experience eating while flirting for it not to be obvious.
"Don't be silly, I'll be eating your share. It would be a shame to waste my delicious cooking."
The vampire made a highly suggestive face as he finished his plate of spaghetti... before stealing Ric's. Not that the ghost cared, as he couldn't eat anyway.
"Then why the romantic dinner?"
"Well, 'had to mark your return, even if you're still dead. I figured it was as good as anything else..."
"Besides the fact that I can't eat nor drink, you mean?"
"Romantic still. You don't mind if I take your wine? No? Thanks. And who said this was all I had for this evening? The candle illuminations can be used for much more than this romantic dinner."
But Damon wouldn't say anymore, and the ghost had to wait for the dinner to end. The vampire took his time, enjoying how Alaric seemed more and more dubious as to the upcoming end of this peculiar date. When he finally stood up, he still did not say anything, only walking around the room, extinguishing the candles.
The ghost and the vampire soon could only see the light from the one room which candles hadn't been snuffed out. Damon led the way upstairs, from where the faint light came, and Ric noted that the vampire had gone out of his way for him not to notice as he had put and lit the candles there earlier. When the ghost saw which room it was, he wasn't as surprised anymore.
Damon began to slowly undress, making a show of his perfect body, and while Alaric could certainly appreciate the view, he felt obliged to point out the very small problem with Damon's likely plan.
"I think we've already established I cannot touch you for real, Damon. I'm sure you've been sex-deprived lately, but still. This isn't going to work."
The vampire glared at him, but said nothing, as he went to sit, naked, on the bed. Ric kept quiet then, watching as his lover slowly touched himself, first masturbating, then his other hand going for his ass, putting one finger, then two, then three. After a time, the ghost went to sit next to his lover.
"This is a bit lonely, no?"
Damon smiled at him.
"It was, but it isn't anymore."
