Aaaaand here cooomes another chaaapteer!
One world apart, part 25: In a very few words
It was... overwhelming.
In fact, Alaric wasn't sure what it was exactly that he was feeling. It felt foreign, kind of, but he could still guess, somehow. Sure, it freaked him out a bit, now that he realized, but well. He could just tell that this foreign feeling was, in fact, life itself. There wasn't anything stranger than to realize you had forgotten how to be alive at some point, though.
He felt exactly the same, and yet, different. Becoming material again had only brought back his senses of touch, of smell, of taste. Senses that definitely belonged to a human being, but they were not what made a human being. Nor a living being.
That... That was different.
He felt whole again, in a very few words.
A very few words, because there wasn't time for him to think about it.
Ric did his best to cut out the strange feeling of extreme joy currently passing through his whole body. It wasn't something his brain had produced, because the ghost was still very focused on the enormous problem they were currently witnessing, and the possible Apocalypse / Armageddon / you-name-it which might happen as a result. It was something more... primal, perhaps.
It was his very being that rejoiced at being pulled out of death.
And it was impeding his ability to react, right now, and to possibly stop what was happening before it was too late. So he simply decided to forget about it.
To lock it away.
A Saltzman did not need a feeling of unknown origin, anyway.
Alaric took a deep breath, and pushed it away, with his very soul. A dozen of seconds passed... and his body was his again, and he could actually do something about the impending disaster.
Oh yes, he had heard Ariane's words, and he wasn't going to let the world end / implode / suffer-through-blood-and-virgin-sacrifices just for the chance to come back to life. He really wasn't worth such a castastrophe, what with his psychological issues, his supernatural family curse, and the new and surely terrible urges he'd have to deal with as a vampire. A vampire who couldn't even kill himself by, say, stepping in the sunlight without protection. A vampire he wasn't sure anyone would be able to control if he lost a marble at some point.
Besides, the grim reaper was friendly enough, and she seemed to suffer greatly from the process of his umpteenth return to life.
Actually, Ariane kind of looked like a chalk statue, right now. Powdery white, and easy to break.
Ric reached for Damon, grabbed his arm, and pulled. Strangely, the vampire who, though older, should have been way weaker than him, resisted. Damon seemed frozen too, his hand on Ariane's arm, his eyes on the nexus ring, his hope in his eyes. Both the vampire and the reaper were unmoving, and it sure started to worry Alaric. If he hadn't seen Ariane speak just a moment before, he'd think they had been turned to stone.
Silas was the only stone statue he wanted to deal with right now.
The air around the grim reaper thickened, and the ghost felt something switch in him.
It was now, or never.
"Damon..."
His voice sounded strange, even to him. Nothing more than a raspy whisper. He had trouble moving. His muscles seemed... Yes, that was it, petrified. Just like the two other people in the room, he guessed. Whatever was happening with the nexus ring, with the Veil, with Ariane, it was causing this... Almost preventing them from stopping it.
A slow and painful wince distorted Alaric's face, as he exaggerated the strength in his grip, and yanked Damon out of the way, and more importantly, away from Ariane.
Damon felt himself being torn away from his friend, from the door to Ric's life, from his only hope. He struggled, or tried to, because he couldn't move. But he was moved away, and it all stopped.
The vampire blinked. He had fallen on his ass, and he wasn't sure why, but he could feel someone under him, and... Damon turned his head around. Alaric was looking at him, a disturbed look on his face. For a moment, the vampire wanted to scream at his lover. They had been so close...
Then his eyes went back to Ariane, who had fallen to her knees, and looked more than ashen, her breathing short and ragged.
Worry got at him, and he felt a push from the ghost he had landed on.
Damon was a bit reluctant to move away from Ric, but hell, Ariane sure looked like he'd better take a look and see if she was alright. Not that there was a large chance for her to answer "yes", considering how she looked. Although, usually, when someone asked that question... They rarely expected a positive answer anyway.
Nonetheless, the vampire got to his feet clumsily, noticed the world was waddling around him, and still, somehow, managed to get to his friend. Then he asked the question to which he already knew the answer, the question that always got on everyone's nerves, the question that never got a positive – and honest – answer.
"You're okay, Ariane?"
The grim reaper started away from him, and scrambled to her feet. The look in her eyes was hurt, and Damon's heart wrenched when he realized this fear was directed at him, that he was the cause of her pain.
Deep inside himself, he knew it to be true, and he knew he wasn't feeling that much remorse. If he had managed to keep his hold on her for just a few more seconds... It only made it worse.
"What do you think?! You... you pulled all the life out of me, yet being what I am, I couldn't die! To a vampire, it would be comparable to desiccating! You, you did that to me, Damon! And worse, you were ready to risk the balance of the world for one single life! You are lucky your boyfriend managed to stop you right before it was too late!"
The vampire took a step back, his eyes flickering to Ric in despair. Just as he had guessed, it had been too soon. Ric wasn't...
Ariane gave the ghost an apologetic look.
"Alaric, I really can't say what will happen to you once the Veil is back into place. Theoretically, you're still a ghost, but you were one second away from crossing to the living side of things. I'm... not sure you still qualify as a full ghost, but you aren't alive either. You are likely to remain behind the Veil, though..."
Ric grimaced, but took it well enough, considering.
His life... no, wait, his lives and deaths, plural – tended to be shitty at best. You could say he had grown used to it. Not that he thought it something to be proud of.
"We'll see. It's not like I had much hope to come back to life, once again, anyway. I'm just relieved we didn't completely crack the world, despite Damon's foolishness."
The vampire's face darkened a bit at that, and he folded his arms around himself, as if to shield his decisions and actions.
"It's not as if I could really walk away either! Ariane, you were as frozen as I was, you know I couldn't...!"
The grim reaper interrupted her friend, an angry scowl on her face.
"That's not the question, Damon! The question is, would you have let go, if you had been able to?"
Damon didn't meet her gaze, and she sneered at him.
"Why am I not surprised? I think I will leave town, now. You can call me back in a decade or two, maybe I'll be in the mood to listen to your excuses!"
Ariane stalked away, and Damon didn't do a thing to stop her. She did, however, stop. She looked directly at Alaric, ignoring her friend completely. Given the state she was in, and what Damon had caused, Ariane felt entitled to being very, very angry.
"Just so you know, Alaric: maybe the layers didn't merge completely, but what just happened? It was enough to crack the Veil where it hasn't been rendered inefficient, meaning, everywhere aside from Mystic Falls. You can be certain that a few overpowered dead witches took advantages of the situation and are now walking the earth again. Other supernatural beings can't do that, but passing through a crack? It's easy for a witch with enough back-up. I hope you'll have fun dealing with them, because me, I'm out!"
And she slammed the door shut, leaving the two others to stare dumbly at said door.
After a moment, though, Alaric turned his eyes back onto Damon, and eyed him with reproach.
The vampire scowled at him, disheartened.
"Oh, don't start with the lessons! I could have gotten you back permanently, and I was almost unable to move! It wasn't exactly easy to make a decision in a tiny twenty seconds time."
The ghost sighed, but didn't start any lesson. Damon felt a new sparkle of hope and hid a small smile. Then Ric ruffled his hair, and the vampire scowled again.
"I suppose it wasn't easy. I just regret that the world can't ever go easy on us."
"You and me both, buddy."
Ric laughed sadly, and ruffled Damon's hair once more.
"Stop it, damn idiot!"
The ghost, who didn't feel much like a ghost anymore, and who could totally see what Ariane had meant earlier, winced as he stilled his hand, but didn't take it out of the raven hair.
What he was feeling right now, he had never had to experience it beforehand. Not... consciously, at least. The only times it had happened to him, just before his last death, he hadn't exactly been himself. So he didn't know what to do with himself, besides keeping his body occupied with something, anything, as long as it kept his mind off the throbbing pain in his throat, stomach, and guts in general.
Damon untangled himself from his lover's fingers. He turned around quickly, a growl at the back of his throat, but with surprise in his eyes. Something wasn't right with the ghost.
And the vampire didn't like it when something wasn't right with Ric. Considering it usually involved the hunter being under the influence of the Falkenbach curse, or temporary death, Damon felt he had a right to be concerned.
The expression on Ric's face confirmed his suspicions.
"Is something wrong?"
What if, since Ric was once again stuck between life and death, what if, because he had failed to keep his hold on Ariane, things had gone from bad, as in dead, to worse, as in... Well, Damon wasn't sure what could be worse than Ric being dead right at the moment, but give him a moment, and surely he could come up with something. It couldn't be that hard, given what their daily lives were like. Something involving unending torture, quite possibly... terrible pains... or a bunch of other unpleasant things. Maybe even all those things at the same time.
Damon shook his head, willing the disturbing thoughts away.
Ric only gave him a blank look, as if he had no idea what this was about.
The vampire rolled his eyes, before making a head tilt towards the twitching fingers of his boyfriend.
"Man, you look like a junkie who didn't get his dose. And I'm pretty sure you didn't have access to any kind of... stuff while on the other side, so you can't possibly be an addict. You don't have the right personality, either. Kind of a drunkard, maybe, at times, but no drugs. So, what's wrong?"
Alaric winced, again, and went to hug Damon. He had missed having someone to care for him like that. Lately, it had always been him worrying about Damon...
The ghost breathed in the comforting scent of his lover. His body was almost mollified by the sole presence of Damon's against him. His mind certainly was pacified.
His gums, on the other hand...
Ric could feel the moderate heat coming from his vampire's body. It was nothing like a human's, sure, but it was Damon, so it called to him all the same. The loud sound of blood pumping right there, just under the skin where he had his nose... Ready for the taking.
The ghost opened his eyes, and he felt more like a vampire than a ghost, this time. The blue of his eyes was swimming into two dark red pools. He knew the veins under his eyes were overflowed with dark blood. He could tell his canines were already turning into fangs.
Damon's blood was calling to him.
For the first time since he was material again, the Original was experiencing the need to feed. Because he wasn't only material anymore, he guessed. He wasn't that dead anymore.
Ric nuzzled his lover's neck, while his fangs grazed the tender skin. In a whisper, he said it.
"I'm thirsty, Damon".
