FIC: Here, We End Together (2/3)
Title: Here, We End Together
Author: sablize
Character/Pairing: Damon/Rose, and the other residents of Mystic Falls.
Summary: "I found someone," Elena says. "Someone who can help Rose." AU. Damon/Rose.
Spoilers: Season 2 finale.
Disclaimer: I still don't own it.
Author's Notes: Oh god, let me just take a second to apologize. I'M SO SORRY that I let this fic go on for so long without updating. Please feel free to yell/flame/lambaste me because clearly I am terrible at updating things and I'm sorry for that. Real life can be in a pain in the ass.
When I started getting interested in this fic again, I actually wrote too much for it to be called a twoshot anymore, so I cut the second part in half to make three. But never fear-the last part is very close to being done and I plan on having it up by Thursday the 19th… a.k.a. the day Rose comes back to the show! Seems like a good way to finish the cycle.
And now, without further rambling, enjoy.
part one here. part three here.
The days and weeks pass just as they ever did, except now they've got a five hundred year old vampire who is (just barely) hanging on by their side.
Damon feeds her lots of blood and gets Bonnie to make her a daylight ring and holds her at night and learns the shape of her hands. Eventually the bite becomes just another daily annoyance-sore most days, itchy others, giving her chills and aches and heat flashes-but, at the end of the day, ensconced in Damon's arms, in Damon's room, in Damon's bed, everything manages to be okay.
And so, life continues.
-
Rose is the first to notice.
Dawn is just breaking when she drags him away from where Stefan and Elena are currently reuniting and where Jeremy and Alaric sit mourning. Without prompt, she demands, "Show me your arm."
His eyebrows rise in confusion, but he already thinks he knows what she's getting at. Still, he plays dumb, raising his (uninjured) arm without a word.
She rolls her eyes at him and grabs the other, yanking back his sleeve the whole way to the elbow, revealing his werewolf bite in all its festering glory. She winces, and asks quietly, "Who did it?"
"Tyler," he replies, carefully extracting his wrist from her grip. He pulls his sleeve back down. "How did you even know it was there?"
"I saw you rubbing it earlier. And you've been acting a bit weird lately, so I thought-" She rocks back on her heels, arms crossed, biting her lower lip. She doesn't finish the sentence. "When were you planning on telling someone, exactly?"
"Whenever I started mass-murdering people, maybe," he replies, smirking, all sarcasm and wit and barely-concealed fear. Rose sighs and tries to glare at him, but the sentiment doesn't quite reach her eyes. She's scared for him, he realizes.
He's scared for him, too.
"Hey, Damon," Stefan says suddenly, popping his head into the room. He looks just as tired and drawn as the rest of them. "I'm taking Elena home."
There's a slight pause. "Right. Okay." Damon nods absentmindedly, and his brother leaves. The atmosphere is broken, and Rose, too, turns to leave.
"Wait," he says, catching her arm. She looks back at him, and her eyes are so startlingly green that it makes his breath catch in his throat. "Don't tell anyone, not yet." She opens her mouth to protest, but he continues. "There's no way to save me, Rose, and you know it. But I want to tell them on my own time."
She nods. "Okay." It's quiet, slightly hoarse. In that second, she looks exhausted beyond belief. But as she slips out of his grasp, she catches his hand and gives it a small squeeze. She smiles, and then she is gone. And he is alone.
-
Rose sees.
She watches as Damon pulls back his sleeve and bares the bite to Stefan. She sees the worry, the shock, the sorrow as they pass, one by one, across Stefan's face. She sees Damon shake his head and stalk away; not angrily, but with a certain resolve to his step. A sad resolve.
As she steps up behind him, Stefan says, "I don't know what to do, Rose."
She shrugs and draws level with him, watching as Damon disappears among the graves. "Elijah's gone. Klaus is gone. The other Originals are long dead." She sighs. "I don't really know either."
"I can't just leave him out there," Stefan says, fidgeting. "The next thing we know, he'll have slaughtered the whole town."
Rose looks across at him. "Go be with Elena," she says. "I'll take care of Damon."
He nods, not willing to argue. Then, rifling in his pocket, he draws out a vervain dart and presses it into her hands. "I have a habit of keeping them on hand, now," he says, by way of explanation. "Take it. I can't let you go out there unarmed."
"You're forgetting that I'm four hundred years older than he is," she says, but bends down to tuck the dart into her boot just the same.
"Thank you," Stefan says as she straightens up.
Rose just nods and sets off after his brother.
-
She finds him slumped against a tree, staring out at the sea of graves.
"Damon?" she asks quietly. He doesn't even turn around, just inclines his head slightly to the side to acknowledge that she's there. There is a length of silence. Then:
"Did Stefan send you out here after me?"
She doesn't answer directly. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
He turns then, mouth open to answer, but his legs give out beneath him and he stumbles. Rose leaps forward to catch him, but their combined momentum forces them to sit at the base of the tree, sunlight pouring across their faces. Damon's head lolls onto her shoulder, then falls to her lap. "I'm okay," he insists. "I am."
He's slightly delirious already, Rose notes, as she smoothes his disheveled hair away from his forehead. She doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing.
"I'm gonna die, aren't I?" Damon asks eventually.
"No," Rose says, far too quickly. "No. Stefan isn't going to let you die, Damon, and neither am I."
Damon sighs and tries to sit up, but his head is too dizzy. He lies back down and his eyes slide shut. "I should have known I'd get bitten eventually. You should've just let Jules kill me when she had the chance."
Rose sneaks her free hand into her boot and retrieves the vervain. "Never," she says, quietly, tenderly. Her breath ruffles his hair as she reaches down and gently pushes the dart into the skin of his wrist. He barely even notices, and his body grows limp within seconds.
Rose picks him up and carries him the whole way home.
-
They start off with putting him in the basement, locked behind the heavy cell door. But once Stefan leaves the next morning, headed to Mystic Falls' next useless celebration, Rose can't bear it anymore; she lets him out.
He's borderline delirious by now and far too weak to get very far even if he did get away. So Rose carries him to his bedroom-a familiar place, something she would've appreciated when she was going through the same thing-and they lay there together, her leaning against his headboard and him sprawled across her lap.
Sometimes he sleeps. When he sleeps, he dreams. She can never tell if they're good or bad, but watches with faint amusement as he mutters to himself. Sometimes she hears Katherine or Elena. Sometimes Stefan crops up as well. Once there is a Rose, but she just shushes him then and tells him, "I'm here."
A few times, he wakes up abruptly and, confused, still living in his dreams, he dashes off the bed and across the room, eyes wide and scared. Rose has to take his hand and coax him back, reminding him where he is and who she is and what she's doing there. And then he remembers fully, and a look of anguished guilt crosses his face; but Rose just soothes him and kisses his forehead and assures him that everything will turn out okay, in the end.
When he's not asleep or delirious, he's screaming in pain and anguish, clutching on to Rose like she is his lifeline, burying his face in her side as he shakes. These are the worst times, because she knows that she can't do a damned thing and it kills her inside. All she can do is wipe his tears away and rub soothing circles across his heated flesh as he writhes in her arms, battling the pain.
But sometimes, when he's not asleep and not delirious and not in pain, he is almost conscious. These are the best times, because they talk. Damon, unwilling to touch his own past (he's reliving most of it in his dreams, she figures) asks her questions about hers: where she grew up, how she met Trevor, what adventures they'd had. She tells him about St. Austell and the brother she'd loved; tells him about the night she found Trevor, freezing cold and dying in the woods, and couldn't bear to leave him; tells him about the night they had compelled their way into a ball at Versailles, just after the wedding of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and how Rose had danced with the King himself.
"The candles, Damon," she remarks wistfully, "thousands upon thousands of them. The ballroom seemed to come alive with them. And the women's dresses, the way their diamonds sparkled in the light. It was breathtaking. Even after all these years, I can never quite forget it."
Damon sighs weakly into her shoulder and grabs her hand. His fingers are like ice. "Sounds beautiful, Rose."
Author: sablize
Character/Pairing: Damon/Rose, and the other residents of Mystic Falls.
Summary: "I found someone," Elena says. "Someone who can help Rose." AU. Damon/Rose.
Spoilers: Season 2 finale.
Disclaimer: I still don't own it.
Author's Notes: Oh god, let me just take a second to apologize. I'M SO SORRY that I let this fic go on for so long without updating. Please feel free to yell/flame/lambaste me because clearly I am terrible at updating things and I'm sorry for that. Real life can be in a pain in the ass.
When I started getting interested in this fic again, I actually wrote too much for it to be called a twoshot anymore, so I cut the second part in half to make three. But never fear-the last part is very close to being done and I plan on having it up by Thursday the 19th… a.k.a. the day Rose comes back to the show! Seems like a good way to finish the cycle.
And now, without further rambling, enjoy.
part one here. part three here.
The days and weeks pass just as they ever did, except now they've got a five hundred year old vampire who is (just barely) hanging on by their side.
Damon feeds her lots of blood and gets Bonnie to make her a daylight ring and holds her at night and learns the shape of her hands. Eventually the bite becomes just another daily annoyance-sore most days, itchy others, giving her chills and aches and heat flashes-but, at the end of the day, ensconced in Damon's arms, in Damon's room, in Damon's bed, everything manages to be okay.
And so, life continues.
-
Rose is the first to notice.
Dawn is just breaking when she drags him away from where Stefan and Elena are currently reuniting and where Jeremy and Alaric sit mourning. Without prompt, she demands, "Show me your arm."
His eyebrows rise in confusion, but he already thinks he knows what she's getting at. Still, he plays dumb, raising his (uninjured) arm without a word.
She rolls her eyes at him and grabs the other, yanking back his sleeve the whole way to the elbow, revealing his werewolf bite in all its festering glory. She winces, and asks quietly, "Who did it?"
"Tyler," he replies, carefully extracting his wrist from her grip. He pulls his sleeve back down. "How did you even know it was there?"
"I saw you rubbing it earlier. And you've been acting a bit weird lately, so I thought-" She rocks back on her heels, arms crossed, biting her lower lip. She doesn't finish the sentence. "When were you planning on telling someone, exactly?"
"Whenever I started mass-murdering people, maybe," he replies, smirking, all sarcasm and wit and barely-concealed fear. Rose sighs and tries to glare at him, but the sentiment doesn't quite reach her eyes. She's scared for him, he realizes.
He's scared for him, too.
"Hey, Damon," Stefan says suddenly, popping his head into the room. He looks just as tired and drawn as the rest of them. "I'm taking Elena home."
There's a slight pause. "Right. Okay." Damon nods absentmindedly, and his brother leaves. The atmosphere is broken, and Rose, too, turns to leave.
"Wait," he says, catching her arm. She looks back at him, and her eyes are so startlingly green that it makes his breath catch in his throat. "Don't tell anyone, not yet." She opens her mouth to protest, but he continues. "There's no way to save me, Rose, and you know it. But I want to tell them on my own time."
She nods. "Okay." It's quiet, slightly hoarse. In that second, she looks exhausted beyond belief. But as she slips out of his grasp, she catches his hand and gives it a small squeeze. She smiles, and then she is gone. And he is alone.
-
Rose sees.
She watches as Damon pulls back his sleeve and bares the bite to Stefan. She sees the worry, the shock, the sorrow as they pass, one by one, across Stefan's face. She sees Damon shake his head and stalk away; not angrily, but with a certain resolve to his step. A sad resolve.
As she steps up behind him, Stefan says, "I don't know what to do, Rose."
She shrugs and draws level with him, watching as Damon disappears among the graves. "Elijah's gone. Klaus is gone. The other Originals are long dead." She sighs. "I don't really know either."
"I can't just leave him out there," Stefan says, fidgeting. "The next thing we know, he'll have slaughtered the whole town."
Rose looks across at him. "Go be with Elena," she says. "I'll take care of Damon."
He nods, not willing to argue. Then, rifling in his pocket, he draws out a vervain dart and presses it into her hands. "I have a habit of keeping them on hand, now," he says, by way of explanation. "Take it. I can't let you go out there unarmed."
"You're forgetting that I'm four hundred years older than he is," she says, but bends down to tuck the dart into her boot just the same.
"Thank you," Stefan says as she straightens up.
Rose just nods and sets off after his brother.
-
She finds him slumped against a tree, staring out at the sea of graves.
"Damon?" she asks quietly. He doesn't even turn around, just inclines his head slightly to the side to acknowledge that she's there. There is a length of silence. Then:
"Did Stefan send you out here after me?"
She doesn't answer directly. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
He turns then, mouth open to answer, but his legs give out beneath him and he stumbles. Rose leaps forward to catch him, but their combined momentum forces them to sit at the base of the tree, sunlight pouring across their faces. Damon's head lolls onto her shoulder, then falls to her lap. "I'm okay," he insists. "I am."
He's slightly delirious already, Rose notes, as she smoothes his disheveled hair away from his forehead. She doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing.
"I'm gonna die, aren't I?" Damon asks eventually.
"No," Rose says, far too quickly. "No. Stefan isn't going to let you die, Damon, and neither am I."
Damon sighs and tries to sit up, but his head is too dizzy. He lies back down and his eyes slide shut. "I should have known I'd get bitten eventually. You should've just let Jules kill me when she had the chance."
Rose sneaks her free hand into her boot and retrieves the vervain. "Never," she says, quietly, tenderly. Her breath ruffles his hair as she reaches down and gently pushes the dart into the skin of his wrist. He barely even notices, and his body grows limp within seconds.
Rose picks him up and carries him the whole way home.
-
They start off with putting him in the basement, locked behind the heavy cell door. But once Stefan leaves the next morning, headed to Mystic Falls' next useless celebration, Rose can't bear it anymore; she lets him out.
He's borderline delirious by now and far too weak to get very far even if he did get away. So Rose carries him to his bedroom-a familiar place, something she would've appreciated when she was going through the same thing-and they lay there together, her leaning against his headboard and him sprawled across her lap.
Sometimes he sleeps. When he sleeps, he dreams. She can never tell if they're good or bad, but watches with faint amusement as he mutters to himself. Sometimes she hears Katherine or Elena. Sometimes Stefan crops up as well. Once there is a Rose, but she just shushes him then and tells him, "I'm here."
A few times, he wakes up abruptly and, confused, still living in his dreams, he dashes off the bed and across the room, eyes wide and scared. Rose has to take his hand and coax him back, reminding him where he is and who she is and what she's doing there. And then he remembers fully, and a look of anguished guilt crosses his face; but Rose just soothes him and kisses his forehead and assures him that everything will turn out okay, in the end.
When he's not asleep or delirious, he's screaming in pain and anguish, clutching on to Rose like she is his lifeline, burying his face in her side as he shakes. These are the worst times, because she knows that she can't do a damned thing and it kills her inside. All she can do is wipe his tears away and rub soothing circles across his heated flesh as he writhes in her arms, battling the pain.
But sometimes, when he's not asleep and not delirious and not in pain, he is almost conscious. These are the best times, because they talk. Damon, unwilling to touch his own past (he's reliving most of it in his dreams, she figures) asks her questions about hers: where she grew up, how she met Trevor, what adventures they'd had. She tells him about St. Austell and the brother she'd loved; tells him about the night she found Trevor, freezing cold and dying in the woods, and couldn't bear to leave him; tells him about the night they had compelled their way into a ball at Versailles, just after the wedding of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and how Rose had danced with the King himself.
"The candles, Damon," she remarks wistfully, "thousands upon thousands of them. The ballroom seemed to come alive with them. And the women's dresses, the way their diamonds sparkled in the light. It was breathtaking. Even after all these years, I can never quite forget it."
Damon sighs weakly into her shoulder and grabs her hand. His fingers are like ice. "Sounds beautiful, Rose."