Drabble: Vampire Diaries - The Dead Travel Fast
Ugh. Okay, I generally don't post things that are only a few hundred words long, but I haven't written anything in almost a month (blah blah real life putting on a funeral is a lot of work) and I'm so excited about finally having the headspace to catch up on VD and finally having the headspace to write that I'm gonna do it.
Stefan and Damon. 400ish words.
The first is the day you wake up and realize you should not have. The day you find you cannot abide sunlight and all the food and drink in the world will not slake your thirst. The day you choose to die in agony, or live on as a monster.
In retrospect, that day was not very dangerous for Damon. Stefan made that choice for him.
The second is the span of years when everyone you knew as a living man begins to die. Of age, of sickness, of the myriad accidents of life that can and do befall the living. When your family and lovers begin to die there is a sense of disorientation that can lead a vampire into dangerous considerations. It begins to dawn on you that you will not share their fate, but you will never share anything else with them either.
This never really happened to Damon. Almost everyone he knew was already dead. From the war, from the fire, from the twenty-seven fucking vampires running all over town. But even when the survivors among his friends began to age and die, when the girls he had danced with succumbed to the strain and pettiness of life, Damon barely noticed. What did it matter? He had Stefan. He had Stefan forever. (As a consequence, this never really happened to Stefan, either. Damon was always there. As an anchor, a fixed point in the changing world.)
This is why conventional vampire wisdom frowns on turning siblings. Once you have a sibling for eternity you are trapped. You can never really be alone and in many ways that is a safety net, but the net is an inescapable one. You can never forget. You can never move on. You cannot reinvent yourself if there is always someone there who remembers you exactly as you were at the beginning.
The third dangerous age for a vampire is when the entire world is nearly unrecognizable as the world of your birth. When society and technology and even geography have moved on without you and you find yourself stumbling over new parts of speech, new problems, new inventions.
This will not happen to Damon. He will have Stefan. Any world where Stefan is must be a world he belongs in. Stefan forced him to turn so that he would not be alone.
Now, neither of them will be alone again. Ever.
Stefan and Damon. 400ish words.
The first is the day you wake up and realize you should not have. The day you find you cannot abide sunlight and all the food and drink in the world will not slake your thirst. The day you choose to die in agony, or live on as a monster.
In retrospect, that day was not very dangerous for Damon. Stefan made that choice for him.
The second is the span of years when everyone you knew as a living man begins to die. Of age, of sickness, of the myriad accidents of life that can and do befall the living. When your family and lovers begin to die there is a sense of disorientation that can lead a vampire into dangerous considerations. It begins to dawn on you that you will not share their fate, but you will never share anything else with them either.
This never really happened to Damon. Almost everyone he knew was already dead. From the war, from the fire, from the twenty-seven fucking vampires running all over town. But even when the survivors among his friends began to age and die, when the girls he had danced with succumbed to the strain and pettiness of life, Damon barely noticed. What did it matter? He had Stefan. He had Stefan forever. (As a consequence, this never really happened to Stefan, either. Damon was always there. As an anchor, a fixed point in the changing world.)
This is why conventional vampire wisdom frowns on turning siblings. Once you have a sibling for eternity you are trapped. You can never really be alone and in many ways that is a safety net, but the net is an inescapable one. You can never forget. You can never move on. You cannot reinvent yourself if there is always someone there who remembers you exactly as you were at the beginning.
The third dangerous age for a vampire is when the entire world is nearly unrecognizable as the world of your birth. When society and technology and even geography have moved on without you and you find yourself stumbling over new parts of speech, new problems, new inventions.
This will not happen to Damon. He will have Stefan. Any world where Stefan is must be a world he belongs in. Stefan forced him to turn so that he would not be alone.
Now, neither of them will be alone again. Ever.