Alaric's day was, once again, shaping up to be just the absolute worst. In fact, at this point he might as well go ahead call it the worst two weeks. He had not had a moment of peace since Damon had turned on his doorstep, swaying and still apparently ready to down a barrel's worth of whisky. He almost considered not even going home and take Jo up on her offer to stay over but he knew that someone needed to look after the uncharacteristically not murderous vampire.
At first he had felt some sympathy for Damon. This was the first relationship the poor fool had experienced that helped him to realise that fighting and wanting to tear each other's clothes is not the only way to have a passionate relationship. Bonnie already had seen (and let's not forget, suffered at the hands of) Damon at his worst. This time, Damon only had himself as the competition.
Their problems really were before the "official" beginning when Damon almost didn't know how to act because he was so used to have that first explosive impression that he would then spend his whole relationship to try and recreate those first few perfect moments. Bonnie wanted to be friends as well as lovers, she wanted all parts of Damon. She wanted the relaxed Damon that hung out for a couple drinks with Alaric on Thursday nights, the sweet Damon who would do those selfless acts for Stefan without ever bringing them up and the sarcastic but still light gossip he was when with Sheriff Forbes. The fact that she didn't need him to change was almost even more challenging for Damon because he had for the first time unwittingly seduced a woman and therefore he could not zero in on the version of himself he thought he should be to keep her. Which was paradoxical since no one could really tell when Damon fell for Bonnie either. Damon himself couldn't - nor would Bonnie tell anyone when she fell for him. The entire group just realised one day that they always thought of Damon and Bonnie as a unit, that nobody was surprised when Damon would drop everything to see Bonnie, that Bonnie would just look more relaxed and content when with him or that they could just communicate with a few looks. What they definitely noticed was when suddenly Damon became super intense (which was when he realised he loved Bonnie) about her safety and started treating her as even more fragile than when she had gotten back from the Other Side, often overriding her decisions and trying to put plans in action without her participation. Bonnie was not happy about that, she had no idea why he had suddenly changed and also acted super grumpy whenever Jeremy or even Matt were around. He had gotten it in his head that she would never date a vampire and that if he could prove he was a "safe" option, she could change her mind. Yeah...Alaric had rolled his eyes hard at that convoluted reasoning when, after one evening of moping, Damon had confessed that Bonnie was upset with him. Despite the hurdles, Alaric was cheering at the possibility of Damon having a mature relationship. Well…as mature as a 24 going on 170 years old vampire dating a 19-year-old after having dated both her best friends could be. So he gave him a hand pulling his head out of his arse.
But now...Now was a very different matter altogether. What Damon was facing wasn't an endearing misunderstanding that would be solved by being himself. This was the result of an unfortunately common mistake. In fact, in this case, Damon being Damon probably exacerbated things. Alaric had tried to warn Damon to always be as clear as possible with Bonnie about what he thought their relationship was. To be fair to Damon, like everyone else -including Bonnie, Alaric was really saying that because he was convinced that if Elena showed some interest or somehow recovered her memories, Damon would eventually go back to her. He had advised Damon to not be overly demonstrative, used the excuse of Bonnie not being into ostentatious displays and maybe even being spooked by how intense he was being at her young age. Granted, it was partially because her complaints about his intensity during his overprotective mode were constant but the truth of the matter was, they had ALL underestimated Damon's feelings for Bonnie.
Alaric had felt bad because Damon not wanting to be clingy pushed him to spend more time with Elena when Bonnie was trying to reconnect with her mum. It had coincided with Elena's break up with Liam, their moping had brought them together. He was sure that even if he was with Elena, Damon was always available for Bonnie but if he told her he was with her best friend, Bonnie would probably feel awkward separating them in anyway as that could either be interpreted like as jealousy or being inconsiderate of Elena's need for support. While he wouldn't all the way say it was Bonnie's fault, her not genuinely believing she was Damon's priority certainly played a part in this mess. She had finally managed to be a bit more selfish when it came to Damon because he actually enjoyed spoiling her, but in this case, she was putting Elena before either of them.
Damon had finally given Alaric more details about what prompted the break up. At first, he had just said that Bonnie had broken up with him to be out of his way back to Elena without letting him decide if that was what he wanted. Also that she apparently was never serious about him. It was only after witnessing a quite serious argument between Caroline and Elena, Bonnie on the sidelines looking overwhelmed and trying to calm Caroline down while Elena was in a contrite but still defensive stance, that he forced Damon to tell him everything.
"Elena has been poking around in her head to try and recover her memories" Damon had started "and I figured I owed her and Bonnie would want me to help her." His heavy sigh had resounded loudly as he went on. "I asked her point blank if getting her memories back had anything to do with our past relationship, because I was happy with Bonnie and would not be even a little bit interested to pick things up where we left off… And she said no, just that she didn't want to go about her life with pieces missing, and she wanted all of herself back. I could sympathise with that, and figured it could occupy me, while Bonnie was reconnecting with her mum. I admit I was avoiding her a little, every time I think about her mother...about what Stefan and I did, I feel sick, 'Ric. As much as she thinks she knows the worst of me, I still keep certain things hidden. I was so nervous that every time she came home after a bonding session, she would see me more and more as the person who took life away from her mother. The one who took away a gift that she has been appreciating and loving so much more now.
Anyway, I spent more and more time with Elena and of course since the memories are all linked to me, and our relationship, she asked me a lot about us. She was surprised when I told her I was terrible boyfriend to her. I guess she found it hard to believe when all she knows is how I have been with Bonnie. I told her that I basically learnt what not to do with her so I was much better when it came to Bonnie. After a few weeks, she was getting frustrated and I yelled at her because it felt like she wasn't trying that hard. She asked me to behave life before to see if that triggered something. I told her I just couldn't. She backed off but seemed pensive the next few times. Then one day, she just kissed me. I pushed her away and told her that it could never happen again. We got back to campus but she had forgotten something at our place. As we went up, I told her that I would have to tell Bonnie what happened. I was not comfortable lying to her about it. I felt partly responsible, I probably indulged Elena too much, and indulged myself as well by being for the first time ever the guy who was seen as the perfect boyfriend material. I felt vindicated by Elena's longing even if we were over. It was quite the come back when you consider it was someone who always saw me as the wrong choice." He had then sighed full of regret. "Elena was distraught, and probably embarrassed, at the idea of Bonnie knowing what she had done. I felt bad, and hugged her telling her I would be there for her but that could only be as a friend and only if Bonnie was comfortable with it. And then, Bonnie walked out of the bedroom, Elena practically jumped, and then ran off. I tried to explain, tell her what happened and you know the rest."
After that Alaric had left Damon alone but tried to gently prod him to explain himself. He didn't realise that the way Damon had decided to do that was to be persistent to the point of harassment. And he only found out because he saw the girls having an argument after a tense class session where Elena had hidden at the back of the class avoiding eye contact with any of them.
She was just trying to talk to Bonnie one-on-one, she said, but Caroline was adamant that anything the brunette had to say to their friend should be okay to say in front of her.
"Caroline, this is seriously none of your business!" Elena had snapped.
"It is my business of you are going to use your tears to make Bonnie feel sorry for you and ignore her feelings."
"You lied to me, Elena! You said you were over Damon. How can you be this selfish-"
"What?! I didn't-" Elena tried to interject but Caroline was on a roll.
"this self-centred? Don't you ever think about Bonnie inst-"
"That's enough! You two need to quit it right now!" Bonnie was fed up. "Elena, I don't need the details, I expected you guys to get back together eventually. BUT, I am not happy with you getting together while we were still in a relationship, I'm extremely disappointed and I need space. You don't need to justify yourself to me, but I need you to let me process this and get Damon to back off. I still haven't gotten my stuff back and he keeps breaking into our room to leave the keys to our place. This is really tiring and drawing out an upsetting situation." She sighed, taking a breath trying to calm herself. No one mentioned how she referred to Damon's apartment as "ours". She turned around and gave a stern look to Caroline;
"And you Caroline, 'Bonnie' is right here and can speak for herself. Elena is our friend, I don't believe she wanted to hurt me. You can be angry at her if you want but don't use me as a reason. Don't speak for me, it's insulting and it makes you as self absorbed as you accuse Elena of being to assume I agree with you." Caroline looked down, suitably admonished. Alaric could see she was feeling bad and Bonnie's face softened but she didn't move to soothe Caroline's anguish. That was definitely a mark of growth. She stood her ground and allowed her feelings to be heard and considered instead of sweeping them under the rug for her friends' comfort.
The visibly worn out witch, realising that they were drawing attention, had then asked for a time out. Elena walked off with her shoulders hunched and eyes wet from frustration. He had felt sorry for the girl he saw as daughter but he also knew they all shared some of the blame and so he thought it best to let them sort it out.
Alaric never figured out whether they got that resolved or not. With the exams and the ball of misery on his couch (so unnecessary, Alaric had a spare bedroom but Damon just had to be a drama queen), he really was trying to limit his exposure to teenage drama.
As he neared his apartment, he sighed heavily, preparing himself for another fun night zoning out after the third or fourth rant from Damon and leaving the room without his best friend even realising he has left. To his surprise, Damon wasn't home yet. As he put his stuff away, he started to get worried that the past two weeks had been the calm before the storm. His mounting worry was quickly assuaged as a happy "Honey, I'm home" resounded from the entryway.
"Hey Buddy. Feeling better today?" he said tentatively.
"Oh, I feel excellent! So much accomplished today." Damn had on a mischievous expression Alaric had not seen in a while. Though his still pale face worried him. "I have made sure that Matt, Blondie or Jeremy can't step a foot in the building, my request to have the deed in Bon-Bon's name just came through and I would pay to see her face when she gets the confirmation in the mail."
"You sure that's not a little presumptuous? And making her friends unable to get her stuff can piss her off even more you know."
"Whatever. I told her in the letter with the papers that I don't want the place if she's not there. I only got it because she chose it, she decorated every inch of the place so she should keep it. It's not like there is any rent or anything. It was meant as her oasis off campus anyway and..." Damon face looked pained as he continued "why would I want to live somewhere that's full of the happiest time in my life when I know it's over? She might as well take advantage of the place because I know I can't."
"That's generous of you. But have you thought that maybe she doesn't want to live in a place that is a reminder of you guys' relationship either?"
"Well it was just a temporary distraction in her mind so she wouldn't care, right?"
At this point Alaric wasn't even sure which answer Damon would prefer to hear, the encouraging one that sounded like a lie to his hopeless ears or the one that added nails in the coffin of their relationship. Alaric went with:
"Regardless, she cared- still cares- for you, Damon. I don't think she would feel good about being there when you can't."
"If she cared -" the upset vampire started in a loud voice "if she cares, then why is she still not answering me? Why is she avoiding me? Trying to erase every trace of me in her life. God, Ric what can I do to even get her to talk to me?"
Damon visibly deflated, the fight and anger leaving his body. He had first been angry, so angry by the fact that Bonnie was so ready to let him go. That she was completely unsurprised, heck she was even expecting it, that Damon would just leave her for Elena. She had seemed almost annoyed that he wanted to talk about it and wanted to stay with her, when she finally realised that he was trying to do that. It felt like she was in a hurry to wash her hands off him.
She wouldn't let him explain. She wouldn't let him tell her that she was the only one he wanted, that it really was not what she had been so quick to assume. But she wouldn't let him say anything and then tried to relegate him to a friend, to someone she showed endless patience to without ever expecting anything in return.
The same flow of questions that had flooded his brain since their break up rose up in his mind all at once. 'How can she ask me to just be there in the background, watch her move on and not be able to be with her?' He thought. 'How can she think we can be friends when I know what it's like to have her to be mine and me be hers? Would she expect me to cheer her on when she dates other people? Give her advice on how she can be happy without me?'
Damon could not go back to the way things were, he wanted to be the one she leaned on, who she felt safe being catered to by.
An unexpected knock on the door pulled him out of his gloomy thoughts, he watched Alaric sigh half in relief and half in annoyance as he went to open the door.
"Enzo! What are you doing here?" Alaric did not try to hide his weariness. The two men had never really endeavoured to get along and mostly tolerated each other's presence in Damon's life and therefore each other's.
"Oh, you know, I heard that my best bud over here is quite chagrined and I thought I might know how to cheer him up." They both could see a self satisfied smirk on the lately brooding vampire's face and it did not bode well.
"Enzo, I'm really not in the mood to paint the town red, I am past that childish and immature response to grief now. That is just so 2014." Damon replied uninterested and irritated.
"OH! But I came to talk about your raison d'être, mon cher..."Glee was plastered all over his face, "I just figured you would be worried that she might slip away from your grasp."
Damon sped over to him at speed Alaric still was surprised by, even after having been a vampire, and grabbed his friend's neck.
"What. Did. You, DO?" He gritted out. Hand tightening with every word but Damon had kept his diet pretty pretty high on alcohol and low on nutritious blood, therefore Enzo gained the upper hand embarrassingly quickly, keeping him at literal arm's length.
"Calm down mate. Why the aggression? Especially when I came over here to help you out, hmm?" He tutted, looking like a disappointed elementary school teacher. "I just wanted to keep you informed since I saw your beloved" he stressed mockingly "chatting with our ex-werewolf friend. She seemed very sympathetic to his loneliness over the holidays and he looked a little too enthusiastic at her suggestion that they go to a chalet. " He waggled his eyebrows and added "Alone. Just the two of them. By a fire...drinking, reminescing about teenage snogs. And before you know it, clothes are fl-"
All Alaric heard was the tell-tale crack of a neck being snapped before seeing Damon speed out through the door. Enzo was laying on the floor with his limbs at an odd angle, looking extremely comical.
Hmmm...well, one way or another, his flat would be all his again. Whether it would be because Damon would move back in his and Bonnie's loft or if it would be because he would go on a booze cruise around the world, it was all in the hands of one small witch. In the meantime, he would practice his nonchalant yet smug pose waiting for the moron currently littering his floor to get the hell out of his place.
He didn't have to wait long, Enzo twitched and released a pained groan soon enough. He had managed to perfect his pose just in time to sarcastically say "Well, that went well. Cup of tea?" Enzo groaned one more time, sitting up gingerly. "No? Well, then get the hell out of my house." The fall out of Damon's actions might shake things up permanently but in the mean time, he had this little victory to savour for a bit. Alaric really really, didn't like Enzo.
"I'm going to rip Lockwood's throat out and feed it to him. Give Bonnie a real reason to completely erase me out of her life" Damon thought.
But even just bringing up her name with the intention of hurting her, Damon slowed down, his rage doused with the cold feeling of awareness. If he did this, if he reacted like this, he would be that person again. The one who lashed out at the ones he loved. He should not want to hurt her. To punish her.
Plus, it didn't even make sense to want to guarantee she would never want anything to do with him. How would it help him to go from a potential reconciliation to making them forever enemies? And it would be, because this was Bonnie and she had sworn on her Grams' grave that she would never allow their relationship to keep her from stopping him if he crossed the line. And killing Tyler would absolutely be crossing the line.
Besides, what would it accomplish? Make her realise that he had been a good boy? She never doubted that anyway, didn't dangle their relationship as a carrot to make him behave, plus what would it matter once he ruined it? Would he go back to that person who flipped a coin and killed someone? What good would that do for him? More loneliness, drunken rages and bitterness, blaming others for his faults? No he wouldn't do that, not for Bonnie, although it was thanks to her that he could even think this way now, but for himself. Because he wasn't that person anymore, he was better than that. He was going to go drink something nutritious, get some real sleep –in his own bed, let the alcohol be worked through his system and call Bonnie the next day. He would present himself as a decent human being, have a calm conversation with her, explain everything that happened and put his heart in her hands. No bargaining, threatening or badgering. Just an honest conversation between two people who loved each other. At least he hoped so, he couldn't believe that all these months together, finally getting a taste of true happiness, had meant nothing to her. Because it had meant the world to him. He loved her so much that he would rather let her find her happiness somewhere else. Earlier he said he couldn't be her friend, but maybe time away would help. Regardless, her happiness mattered most. He just wanted to cast away any doubt from her mind that she was loved, that he would never, ever betray her and that she was always his priority. If he knew he had given it his all, told her everything she needed to hear, at least he would be sure he did everything and start to get used to the idea of being without her.
Just thinking about that made his chest tighten in sadness. But he had to do it, for Bonnie. As a thank you for everything she had given him.
He arrived home. Showered, fed and went into the bed he had fled since her departure. The room smelled like her, the sheets still carried her gardenia scent. He fell asleep right away.