Tip of the Iceberg (One shot)
Damon watched Alaric leave the Grille out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t been at all surprised at the teacher’s punch a few seconds earlier. He could understand Alaric’s fury to a degree. The guy’s wife, the supposed love of his life, had left him for a life of immortality that she did not want him to share. Even worse, Isobel had let her husband believe that she was dead. Yeah, Damon knew all too well what that felt like.
Damon shook his head and nodded to the bartender for another. After downing the shot, he threw a couple of bills on the counter and left. He considered heading back to the house, but he didn’t really fancy seeing Stefan and Elena’s happy couple-dom shoved in his face. Not tonight. So rather than go home, he walked. The quiet, sleepy town of Mystic Falls wasn’t all that different from the Mystic Falls he had grown up in over 140 years before. Sure, there were cars now. And electricity. And all the houses had working plumbing. But the character remained. No matter how far Damon traveled - and he’d been nearly everywhere - Mystic Falls was still home. He’d never admit it, of course. That didn’t make it any less true.
It wasn’t a long walk. Mystic Falls wasn’t that big. But when Damon looked at where his feet had taken him, he wasn’t all that surprised. Elena’s house. His mind had the annoying habit of bring up the beautiful brunette when he least wanted it to. The girl who looked so much Katherine, but was so completely different from the woman he’d known. Where Katherine was cruel, Elena was kind to a fault. Where Katherine was selfish, Elena was loyal. It was unnerving. But for all that, Damon never saw Katherine when he looked at Elena. She was very much her own person.
A car door slammed from behind him. Damon didn’t need to turn around to know it was Elena. He smiled to himself.
“Are you stalking me now, Damon?” Elena asked tiredly.
“Believe me, Elena, if I was stalking you, you wouldn’t have the faintest idea that I was,” Damon replied. Then he saw the look on her face. She looked sad, exhausted and guilty all at the same time. “What’s wrong?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
Elena sighed. “Do we have to do this now, Damon? I really tired. I’d like to get some sleep sometime this month. Why do you even care anyway?”
“I don’t,” he said hurriedly. “But if you’re having a lover’s spat with Stefan, some warning would be nice. That way I can avoid the Brood Master.”
Elena quirked her lips up at that. “I’m not fighting with Stefan. We’re fine.”
“Elena, that sentence is practically begging for a but. So spill. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”
Elena sighed. “You’re going to find out sooner or later anyway, I guess. Let’s go inside.”
Intrigued now, Damon followed Elena into the house. He plopped down into one of the living room chairs liked he owned the place and waited. Elena took a place opposite him on the couch, ditching her jacket as she did so.
Elena took a deep breath and said, “They found Vicki. Or rather, Caroline found Vicki. The storm apparently washed up her grave.”
“OK, so what does that have to do with the mopey face?” Damon asked.
Elena’s eyes flashed cold fury at him. “Are you serious? Have you really forgotten that quickly? You turned her out of boredom, remember? Then she attacked me at Halloween? Stefan staked her, Damon! And you! You were supposed to bury her!”
“I did!” Damon said indignantly.
“Obviously, you didn’t do a very good job!”
Damon thought back to that night. He had driven out to one of Mystic Falls back roads and haphazardly disposed of the body. Was the grave he’d dug really that shallow? Why hadn’t he burned it? He looked back at Elena. The only thing he could recall with absolute certainty was how Elena’s blood had smelled. He remembered ordering her away before the temptation to taste her grew too strong for him to control. He opened up his mouth to defend himself when his eyes fell to Elena’s wrist. It was heavily bandaged, but Damon could smell the fresh wound.
“What happened to you?” he asked, nodding at the bandage.
“Nothing. And don’t change the subject,” Elena snapped.
“Elena, the last time I saw you, you were half carrying Stefan back to the car. You did not have that,” he said, taking her wrist into his hands.
Elena tried to snatch her wrist away, but Damon was too strong for her. He sniffed at the bandage and smelled Stefan. Suppressing the wave of jealousy he felt, Damon looked into Elena’s eyes and said, “I’m only going to ask this once. What. Did. He. Do.”
For the first time, Elena’s confidence wavered. There was genuine fear in her eyes. “He didn’t take it, Damon. I…I offered. Damon, he was dying. Frederick was there, and…and I had to do something. I couldn’t just let him die.” She paused, took a breath. “So I made him drink. And it hurt. A lot. And then Stefan was staking Frederick with a branch…”
“And? You can’t tell me that after a century of eating squirrels, Stefan was Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected. What happened?”
“He sort of growled at me. It looked like he was going to attack me for a second. Then he snapped out of it. But he’s fine now, really.” It sound more like Elena was trying to convince herself than Damon.
Damon reached up and cupped her cheek in his palm. “Everything’s going to be fine, Elena. We’ll deal with this, OK? You should get some sleep. You look like hell,” he said with mock sarcasm.
Elena half smiled. That was better. Damon helped her to her feet and then made for the door. “Damon?” Elena called.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for helping save Stefan.”
“Hey, he’s my little brother. The only one who gets to torture him is me,” Damon replied with a grin.
Elena smiled back at him. “Good night, Damon.”
“Good night, Elena.” With that, Damon was out the door and heading back to his Mustang. He needed to get back to the house. He and Stefan needed to figure out what they were going to do about Pearl and the rest of the tomb vampires. This Vicki thing just gave their lives a complication that they did not need. When Damon arrived, he saw the downstairs light was still on, so he assumed that’s where Stefan was. He smelled blood the second he entered the house. Human blood. What the hell? As he approached the living room, Damon saw the first blood bag. And then the second. A third rested on the coffee table. Knowing what he would find didn’t make it easier to comprehend. Sitting on the floor, huddled near the fireplace, Stefan clutched the fourth blood bag in his hands. There was blood down his chin and he had a wild, half-crazed look in his eyes.
Oh shit, Damon thought.
FINIS