Per Essere Migliore
Elena is constantly harping, ‘be better’ ‘be better’ ‘be the better man’ ‘be the bigger man’ ‘be the-‘
(for the love of Stefan, shut the fuck up already)
For all the good it does
(I can’t be who she wants me to be)
She says it like he has a choice
(It’s in my nature. It’s who I am.)
Like if she bats her eyes at him enough he’ll heel like a good dog
(“Stop assuming that I’ll play the good guy because it’s you who’s asking.”)
She’s like Katherine that way.
(you’re wrong, I don’t belong to you)
This is the first inkling in the back of his brain
(She doesn’t love you)
Because she never tries to control Stefan.
(Even when he’s tearing throats out all over town she’s just there and she loves him and she’ll love him just as much when he finds his way out of the darkness)
And he realizes, it doesn’t even hurt.
(she brushes off his behavior and it lets him feel like a decent person without being one)
but he doesn’t love her.
(in his unfortunate experience love just taught him to lie and life taught him to die)
She is alluring because she is what Katherine should’ve been and he clings for so long because that bitch stole 145 years from him and he wants it back and Elena gives it to him without question.
(I need an apology, I need it without the salt, I need it to fix me)
But she pities him.
He is the sad, angry, broken one.
(And he doesn’t want anyone’s pity.)
Stefan is stuck on the man he was.
(“He’s still my brother.”)
But that child died 145 years ago
(with his father and his brother and his heart)
He says it like it is a decision
(“How we respond to that will define us. It's our choice.")
like if he stops pouting long enough he, too, can be noble and weepy.
(you’re wrong, I don’t belong)
In the beginning making eyes at his little brother’s girlfriend was a sadistic thrill
(back when Stefan actually felt threatened and Elena actually gave him a second thought)
but now the thrill withers and dies
(Stefan loves her and he’d give her up without a fight if it would make her happy and Elena loves him and if Homicidal!Stefan didn’t do the trick, this girl will never walk away)
Caroline doesn’t care who he is.
(but they are slowly coming to civility over her newfound afterlife)
Jeremy revered him like a rock star
(until he snapped his neck)
And now he is relegated to mud on the Gilbert’s shoe
(or a poacher of the Little Witch’s attentions)
Bonnie is relentlessly silent.
(But he knows she means, “Fuck up again and I’ll kill you.”)
For all the good it does
(what the hell is this please and thank you and truck door-holding-chivalry-bullshit?)
She doesn’t give him an option.
(she accepts no excuses-heartbreak does not justify homicide)
She knows exactly the man he is
(she holds no expectations of decency and yet she has him resisting the urge to sink his teeth into sweet, sweet, warm, human flesh without breaking a sweat)
This is the first inkling in the back of his brain
(he likes it)
because between Elena’s manipulation and Stefan’s secrets it is refreshing to know precisely where he stands
(and he blames this newborn affliction on black magic)
because God he’s whining,
(Bonnie ride in the truck with me, Bonnie kill a werewolf with me, Bonnie cast a spell for me, Bonnie help me save the town again, Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie.)
And there is a southern gentleman who wants
(only sometimes)
to tear Jeremy’s spleen out through his mouth
(He doesn’t know who that is. Would that fancy magic ring regenerate an entire spleen?)
the next time he gets within fifty feet of Bonnie’s air supply.
And the line between hate and sex
(and something he isn’t prepared to acknowledge)
is rapidly blurring where she is concerned
(and he craves it)
the judgy little witch
(with her pure heart and noble soul and wicked lips)
runs in his veins
(she never nags and she never has to)
She doesn’t judge him on who he was or who she wants him to be.
She keeps him alive
(for now)
because of who he is.
He hides in the night
(he becomes the shadow, the dark)
Because it’s easier to pretend when the light isn’t so damn bright;
(weak human eyes can’t detect the subtleties of a liar without sun to illuminate the truth)
but judgy isn’t human.
And he cowers at the bottom of a bottle because the burn of the brandy blankets his scabs and scars-
tucks them under
(the blissful numbness)
the illusion of repair
(one more drink and I’ll be healed)
He takes solace in the wounds he inflicts
(I told you the words and then knew it was a lie)
And the brief relief from the nightmare he lives
(I wish I could offer an appeal)
And he’s losing his edge and he’s losing his mind and he hears her voice in his head all the time and
(without trying, without instructions)
it just happens
And he won’t say he likes the way it feels when they work together and it works out and she is not afraid and she is not disappointed and she is begrudging but she makes him hear it
(because she is the good and just in his world; because she is objective and honest and benevolent)
even when she’d rather cut out both their tongues instead
And she makes him believe it
(“Good job, Damon.”)
When she’s near him his words are one lie short of true
(you are the secret that I keep)
And his fingertips are one twitch shy of her pulse point
(I put my arm around you safe in the night)
And his blood is one degree short of boiling over
(but I don’t belong)
And he knows
(you should be free of me)
the dangerous territory he is poised to breach jeopardizes the one thing that can save him
(the one thing he thinks he might want to deserve)
(you’re wrong, I don’t belong)