Run with me - 2/6
“I’m not a ripper, Ric, I don’t black out. I don’t know what I’d do if I did… Let’s hope we’ll never find out.”
~ Damon ~
~~~~*~~~~
“Ric."
The voice, low yet insistent, finds him even in the darkest corner of his mind.
"Ric, wake up."
He makes a sound of protest and turns away from the words. He needs to go back to the place he was before, it was quiet there. He likes quiet.
A noise assaults his ear, some loud, scraping sound that seems oddly rhythmic and musical. It’s getting closer and the increasing volume does nothing for the bad sound. He cracks open one eye to find a blurry version of Elena lean over the back of the couch. She’s holding something small and black close to his face; it’s his phone.
“It’s Damon.” Elena drops the cell on his chest and leans back.
Alaric blinks groggily in the bright light and grabs the phone, blindly searching for the button to accept the call.
“What?” Ugh, his throat feels like he’s been choking down gravel, he barely gets the word out.
“You up yet?” Damon sounds as cheerful as ever. And very much awake.
“What is it?” Alaric pulls himself into a sitting position and looks around. The DVD player flashes a happy 11.37 am at him. Way too early.
“Elena back? Bark twice for ‘yes’, Lassie.”
“What?” Alaric looks up to watch Elena walk back to the kitchen, about to call her back and ask her to make sense of this, but Damon is talking again.
“We need to talk about something I don’t want her to know about, so watch what you’re saying. You up for a road trip to Memphis?”
Alaric isn’t following. “What is-what do you need me for?”
“Got a tip from the lovely girl across the room from you, seems like Forbes dug up a valid lead this time. I need backup for this. You up for it?” A pause, then, “Ric, are you even awake?”
“I think,” he offers cautiously, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
“Meet me here in an hour, you’re driving.”
Alaric cuts the connection, drops the phone on the couch, and tries to figure out what he’s supposed to do now. Memphis? That’s several hours’ drive, you don’t just go there for any lead-
“What did he want?” Elena is trying too hard to sound casual, but he’s still half-asleep and barely remembers the go-to-lie he’s been using the past days for anything Elena isn’t allowed to find out.
“Something that has to do with something I’m not supposed to tell you about.”
Elena eloquently rolls her eyes; phrased like that it’s clear he’s talking about the birthday party everybody is trying to keep a secret. Unsuccessfully, by the way, since she found out about it the day Caroline started planning it.
Still, she always plays along. “Have fun then.” She walks out of the room, but stops at the stairs. Shoots him a worried look. “Ric… you were doing it again, are you sure you’re okay?”
Alaric winces, feels himself tense uncomfortably. They have this conversation nearly every morning. ‘It’ refers to weird noises he is supposed to make in his sleep.
“You’re moaning, like you’re in pain, Ric. In serious pain. I’m worried about you.”
Elena wakes him up whenever it gets so loud it scares her, eyes wide and worried. He always feels fine, a little stiff, maybe, from sleeping on the couch. And tired, but he’s constantly feeling tired these days. He doesn’t remember any bad dreams, no nightmares, nothing. Still, it’s bad enough Elena looks seriously troubled whenever she wakes him.
“I’m fine, Elena, don’t worry.”
She doesn’t buy it, but they’ve been over it so often she no longer asks. “Okay.” Elena starts to get up the stairs, stops in the middle. “Oh, and Ric… Please tell Caroline I asked you to keep the party small.”
Alaric grins. “I’ll tell her,” he says, futile as they both know it will be. “But I’m not promising anything.”
Elena disappears upstairs. Alaric leans back against the couch, taking a deep breath. A road trip to Memphis, Tennessee, first thing in the morning. Great.
What the hell can they possibly find out there?
~~~~*~~~~
The house is quiet.
It’s a farmhouse and there are no other houses close enough to see, fields and a lonely road stretching out across the land as far as the eye can see. Damon and Alaric get out of the car, listening to the silence. A church bell sounds in the distance, a dog starts barking somewhere down the road, falls silent again. It’s a strange peace, unnatural.
Just as Alaric is about to say something, Damon’s phone starts ringing, sounding unusually loud in the quiet. Damon looks at the caller ID, rolls his eyes and puts the cell back into his pocket. Like he has done at least a dozen times on the drive here.
“Elena?” Alaric walks around the car. “I don’t know why you just don’t come clean and tell her were we are.”
"Because Andie said this was a half lead and I don't want to get her hopes up."
It's not really a lie, but it isn’t the complete truth either. Damon doesn’t want her to come along because they have no idea what they will find here. It’s the first time they’ve actually followed a lead all the way to its source. It can be nothing or they could be walking right in to a trap.
"Well, they’re all half leads, and I'm your accomplice." Alaric thinks back to the morning, to Elena watching him critically as he was trying to find his bearings and not spill the beans about their plan to drive here. "What do you want me to say to her, I'm practically living there."
"Still sleeping on the couch?" Damon asks, grinning, as if he doesn’t already know that Alaric still is.
“You know, I keep waiting for them to kick me out, but they don’t.” He shrugs. “I don’t know why, it’s not like him helping or anything.”
Actually, it’s more the other way around. Elena and Jeremy remind him, day after day, that both of them lost so much more than him. And even though it’s not easy at the moment, they still find a way to keep going and live their lives. Which, more often than not, is more than can be said about him.
Damon makes a non-committal sound, still busy scanning the surroundings. Alaric follows his gaze, getting more and more suspicious of the silence.
“It’s quiet.”
“Too quiet,” Damon agrees.
They head up the porch. Damon doesn’t bother to knock or ring the bell; he simply opens the door and tests the threshold with his foot. It goes through without any kind of resistance. Whoever is living here… probably isn’t any longer among the living.
Alaric follows Damon inside, hesitating for a moment when he is hit by the smell, sweet and nauseating at the same time. It’s the smell of blood, a lot of it. A soft buzzing sound tickles his ears, almost at the edge of his hearing, like dozens of insects nearby. He keeps an eye on the staircase leading up as he follows Damon through the hallway. He should have brought his crossbow, something’s not right here, despite the stillness there’s some kind of tension in the air.
Damon stops walking, eyes fixed on something inside the room next to him. Alaric immediately readies himself to fight if something should attack them-but nothing happens. Alaric joins him at the door to see for himself, regretting his move immediately.
On first glance it looks like the two girls are watching TV, chilling out on the couch. But they are too still, they don’t move, lifeless eyes fixed on nothing. Both of them are pale, bloody wounds visible all over their bodies. Bite marks on their throats, on their wrists, on their legs, their arms…
"Ugh, vampire for sure." Alaric looks to the side. He will never get used to the sight of dead people.
“Stefan for sure.” Damon’s voice has a weird tone to it, part relief-and part annoyance.
Alaric doesn’t want to know, but he has to ask. “How do you know?”
Damon slowly walks into the room. “It's his signature; there's a reason they call him the ripper." He eyes the girls for a moment. "He feeds so hard he blacks out and rips them apart, but when he's done, he feels remorse. It's the damndest thing," he lifts a foot and places it on one of the girls legs, "he put the bodies back together." Damon gives the leg a push-and the whole body shudders and literally collapses: The head falls to the floor with a dull thud, one arm flops to the side.
Alaric’s stomach clenches painfully. “Back together?”
Damon crosses his arms in front of his chest, staring at the bodies. "Definitely Stefan."
Alaric has to step away, get his head clear. He takes a deep breath. “Awesome.”
Damon shrugs. “Let’s split up, you look through the rooms here; see if you can find something useful, I’ll search the rooms upstairs.”
Alaric hesitates. He’d feel so much better if he’d brought at least some of his weapons along.
Damon displays his uncanny insight into Alaric’s body language again. Or maybe he is simply reading his thoughts; Alaric wouldn’t put it past him. “Relax, Ric, the house is empty, there’s no one here but us.” He walks by him, giving Alaric a slap on the shoulder as he passes him. “No one living, that is.”
Alaric knows him better than to buy the (too) obvious casualness. Damon is worried, shaken by what he has seen here. Maybe not as much as Alaric himself-vampire victims rarely (if ever) look like this-but still enough for Damon to play this as cool as he can; a dead giveaway that whatever has happened has him in emotional turmoil.
Damon’s steps disappear up the stairs. Alaric gladly backs away from the living-room and turns to the kitchen. The door is half-open and the lights are on. He slowly pushes the door open, still alert and careful despite Damon’s claim that they are alone… and freezes in the doorway.
It looks so normal, like someone was in the middle of preparing dinner and ran off to answer the phone. Plates are laid out on the table, a bottle of Coke opened, a glass half-full. Vegetables cut on the on the counter, the knife next to them, a magazine open in front of a chair. For a moment he can imagine the two girls chatting away over the preparation of the food, alive and laughing, enjoying the evening.
He actually has to force himself to breathe past the sudden lump forming in his throat. This is so wrong, it shouldn’t have happened. Those girls shouldn’t have died like this, not at the hands of such a ruthless, bloodthirsty monster.
At the hands of Stefan Salvatore.
It’s hard-if not impossible-to accept the fact that this has been Stefan’s doing. That Stefan, polite, well-mannered, protective Stefan is able to do this. To kill, to feed like an animal, brutal and merciless. Damon kills, Alaric has seen him do it, more than once, has cursed him, more than once, for losing it, for taking someone’s life. It’s the part of Damon that will forever be impossible to understand or forgive.
But Damon has never been cruel, has never lost himself in the thrill of the hunt.
At least not when they had been hunting or hanging out together.
This… this is something entirely different. Even Isobel, as cold-hearted and distant as she had been, even she had seemed in control of herself. When he had no longer been able to look at her as the woman he had once loved more than anything in the entire world-he had never thought of her as a monster, not in the sense of a blood-thirsty animal that would tear its victims apart.
Elena needs to see this, she needs to know.
It will break her heart. Hell, it’s breaking his heart and he isn’t crying himself to sleep over Stefan every night. Alaric runs a hand over his face, thinking. He doesn’t even know how to tell her. How do you tell someone that the person they love is a murderer? It’s no news that vampires kill, Elena probably knows more about this side of her boyfriend than she should, but Alaric doubts that she has realized the whole extent of his nature. He certainly hadn’t before now, and he considers himself something of an expert on vampires.
Alaric shakes his head slightly, willing himself back to the present. He walks to the backdoor that leads to the garden and opens it. Two deck chairs, a book on one of them, fields as far as the eye can see, a small group of trees to the right. Normal, no signs of an intruder.
He's about to close the door and go back into the hallway-when he feels ice-cold fingers ghost across his neck. It almost feels like a caress. Alaric gasps in shock and whirls around, arms raised to defend himself-but there is no one there, he is alone in the kitchen.
“What the-“
The hallway on the other end of the kitchen is empty. No shadows, no movement, nothing.
Alaric takes a step toward the hallway-and freezes when a shiver jolts through his body.
Klaus.
He’s been there, Alaric knows it, he can feel it. Klaus was standing at the exact same spot where he is right now, the feeling is so strong he almost reaches out for-something that isn't there. It’s wrong, it should be here, he wants it back…
Alaric is so lost in the moment that he jumps when he hears steps on the stairs. He takes a deep breath-and flinches when Damon suddenly appears at the end of the hallway.
And the feeling is gone. Just like that.
"Did you find anything?"
Alaric blinks several times, shakes his head. "Nothing," he says, feeling a little dazed. "You?"
Damon shakes his head. "There are some horribly romantic history novels upstairs. You could have a look at them, check whether they’re historically correct?” He winks, leans closer to get a look at the kitchen behind Alaric. “The rest of the house is clean, no more bodies, no secret messages.”
"It was a perfectly normal family until they met your brother," Alaric says softly, trying not to sound overly dramatic.
"At least we know he's alive now.” Damon shrugs. “Let me get something from the car."
Alaric takes a long, last look over the kitchen and steps out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. Wishing it was that easy to leave all those pictures and impressions behind as well.
Damon comes back inside, carrying a tank of gasoline. He heads for the living-room and Alaric joins him, watching as the vampire starts to pour the liquid over the bodies and the couch.
“What are you doing?”
"Covering their tracks. Clearly they have no interest staying in the dark, but I do."
The strong, unpleasant smell of the gasoline mixing with the blood is overwhelming, causing Alaric to take a step back. Beneath his shoes, the floor groans, a loose floor-board creaking. Damon puts the tank down and comes over, flipping the carpet aside, revealing a hidden door. They share a suspicious look and Damon pulls the door open. A different smell drifts toward them, something Alaric picks up even over the blood and the gasoline. It’s familiar; earthy, strange, but definitely familiar. But that’s not all there is, the small room they discover is full of chains attached to the wall and the floor. Claw marks litter the walls, drops of dried blood next to them.
Alaric realizes what this means before Damon opens his mouth to say it.
“Well, what do you know…” Damon sniffs the air, takes a closer look. “Werewolves.”
Damon lets the door fall shut with a bang, pulls a box of matches out of his jeans. He lights one of the matches and looks over at Alaric. “Any last words?”
Alaric rolls his eyes and takes a step back, watching as Damon drops the match on the floor. The bodies immediately catch fire. The smell of burnt flesh has Alaric back away and head for the front door only moments later. Once outside, he takes a deep breath of fresh air, trying to loosen his tense muscles a little.
Damon appears next to him, pretending to dust off his clothes. “Mission accomplished,” he says as he stalks to the car, not looking back.
Damon’s not happy, it shows: in the tight set of his shoulders, in the measured steps, in the controlled movements. Alaric turns to have one last look at the house, then gets into the car as well.
~~~~*~~~~
It’s already starting to go dark outside and Alaric can feel himself start to get really tired. They are just outside Memphis when he finally decides to speak up. “How are we going to tell Elena?”
Damon stays silent for a long moment. “’Yes, Elena, your boyfriend is still alive, but he’s reenacting his greatest moments from the past. Here, have some cake’.” He chuckles, but it’s a humorless sound. “One hell of a birthday present.”
“She has to know-“
“I know, Ric, believe me, I know.” Damon heaves a long sigh that sounds only partly exaggerated. “Stefan in ripper-mode is a douche… Those girls in the house? If he’s really gone? That was just a snack, to last until he finds the next human being…” He rolls his head on the headrest, looking at Alaric from the side. “You think I’m rude and impossible around humans? Kill too much? Wait till you meet him; you’ll never call me a monster again.”
“Why would he go back on human blood? I thought he was on an animal-diet, wasn’t that what you were always fighting about?”
Damon turns to look at the street again. “Remember the blood bags we found at your apartment? I’m thinking he might have had some of them, enough to flip the switch. Stefan has always been unstable-but he’s one hell of an actor. The Stefan you know? All controlled and loving humans and fighting to be human? That’s Stefan ignoring what his senses are telling him, what his instincts are begging him to do. Have you ever seen me flip out at the sight of blood?”
Alaric shakes his head, he’s been hurt often enough around Damon, he can’t recall a single time Damon looked at him differently, like he was about to eat him. Or tear his limbs from his body.
Damon shrugs. “That’s because I’m used to it. Even when I’m really hungry, I can control the urges. Stefan-he craves human blood with every cell of his body. Even a small wound will set him off, draw out the animal in him. I warned him, I told him what would happen, but he didn’t listen. Wanted to be Saint Stefan for Elena, as human as possible.”
There’s a pause. “If he’s had only half of the blood bags we found? There’s no going back from that for a long time, not for Stefan. And those were just blood bags.” He points to the back of the car. “Those girls? That was the real deal, the thrill of the hunt, warm blood, a warm body in your arms…” He takes a deep breath, grinning at Alaric over the small space that’s separating them. “You should try it some time, you’ll never know what you’re missing…”
Alaric laughs, but he sobers quickly. “Do you ever have the urge to rip people apart like that?”
“I’m not a ripper, Ric, I don’t black out. I don’t know what I’d do if I did… Let’s hope we’ll never find out.” There’s the grin again, Damon’s teeth shining in the darkness.
For a moment, for as long as Damon’s eyes flash like a cat’s in the streetlights, Alaric wonders. When it comes down to his best friend-with everything he has been through, everything he knows-is he just as naïve and blind as a certain doppelganger?
~~~~*~~~~
The drive home is a long one. At some point they switch and Damon drives, while Alaric tries to doze off. He listens to the car's engine, to the music that is playing softly in the background, to the different sounds outside. Tries to let them lull him into sleep. He used to be able to fall asleep as soon as he sat down somewhere and closed his eyes. No matter where he was, no matter what was happening around him. It seems to be impossible these days.
But he’s tired, and so he keeps his eyes closed and lets his mind drift, trying to think of nothing in particular.
“Ric.”
The voice comes from far away.
“Ric, wake up.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. “Alaric.”
He opens his eyes, groaning in protest. It takes him a moment to realize he’s still in the car, slumped uncomfortably against the passenger’s door. His neck is stiff, protesting against any movement. “What…”
“Are you with me finally?” Damon sounds weird, if he didn’t know better, he’d almost call it concerned.
Alaric turns his head to the side with some difficulty. “What?”
“What was that all about, were you having a nightmare or something?”
It’s completely dark outside now and the road they are on is empty. Alaric can barely make out Damon’s profile through his blurry eyes. “What do you mean?” He sits up groggily, rubbing a hand over his face. “I wasn’t sleeping…”
Damon looks at him for a moment. “You were sleeping, Ric, you were totally gone. And moaning. At first I thought you were having a really good dream, but that sounded… painful… I have no idea what’s going on in your head, was it the right kind of pain?”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Alaric insists, although he isn't really sure. “I don’t sleep much these days, can’t get my mind to shut up…”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Damon says after a pause, uncharacteristically insightful. It’s a rare invitation to talk, but Alaric is just too tired to concentrate on what he does and doesn’t want to say.
“I’m okay,” he says instead.
Damon shrugs. Your choice, buddy.
They are silent. For a moment.
"So, about tomorrow..."
~~~~*~~~~
“Ric, can I ask you a favor?”
He looks up from the game he isn’t watching, turning on the couch. “What do you need?”
Elena sighs, tries a half-grin. It doesn’t convince him.
“I know Caroline has this birthday party planned for me next week. And I know you know and it’s supposed to be a surprise and everything…” She takes a deep breath, looking guilty. “Can you ask her to keep it simple? I don’t… I want… I don’t really want to celebrate and have a party, it wouldn’t feel right…”
Alaric can’t suppress a grin. “It might be a little late for that, she’s planned a lot for it already, invitations are out and everything…”
Elena’s face falls a little. “I thought so…” She pulls her jacket closer around her shoulders. “I know she means well, it’s just…” Elena breaks off, stares off into space, looking for words Alaric knows she won’t find.
“They’ll understand, Elena. Whatever you do, they’ll understand.” He’s talking about the living and the dead, and Elena seems to understand him. She tries to smile again and this time it reaches her eyes.
“Okay.”
He watches her walk toward the stairs where she stops and looks at him over her shoulder. “Please don’t get me anything for my birthday, no presents, no cards-nothing okay? It’s… it’s nice enough that you’re here, it means a lot more than anything you could get me.”
She’s upstairs before he can say anything, leaving him to stare at the stairs with a heavy heart.
The same stairs Elena is now, five days later, descending while chatting on the phone. Alaric is standing in the kitchen, fighting to get the coffee machine to work for him, but giving up when he hears her voice. Elena is obviously talking to Caroline and she sounds… okay. Not as cheerful as you are supposed to be on your birthday, your 18th birthday for that matter, but not close to tears, either. She even smiles at him when she enters the kitchen, and then pushes him out of the way as she does something to the machine she’s explained a hundred times before, but that never works for him whenever he tries it.
“… and I never said yes in the first place,” Elena says into the phone, rolling her eyes at Alaric in exasperation. He smiles back at her and goes over to the couch, starts straightening it.
“Caroline-Caroline, wait, I don’t want-no, not that’s too-Caroline, please, don’t-“
Another long-suffering sigh follows. Alaric can’t quite keep his amusement to himself and Elena glares at him.
“Okay… Okay, Caroline, just… please keep tonight small, okay? Please…” She trials off, listens. Sighs. “Yeah, see you later.”
Elena hangs up, grabs two mugs and pours some coffee.
Alaric grins. “She’s not keeping it small, is she?”
Elena rolls her eyes. “It sounds like a millennium party, too many people, too much booze, too much everything…” She walks over to the couch, handing him one of the cups. “I really don’t want to go…”
“It doesn’t sound like you’re going to get out of this.”
There’s a moment of silence, then Elena cocks her head slightly. “Are you sure you’re still okay on the couch?”
Alaric straightens, taking a sip from his coffee. Too hot, too bitter. Normal. “Yeah, I’m good.”
They’ve had this conversation again and again over the summer; she asks, he declines her next offer; it’s like a dance of some sorts, without the music, without the fun.
“Because you spent half the summer on it. If you need your own bedroom?”
Alaric shakes his head. “Sleeping in your dead parent’s room… or my dead girlfriend’s room…”
He couldn’t do either, feels sick even thinking about it. He wouldn’t even be here if he still had a home.
Elena doesn’t look happy, but she nods. As she always does. “Alright, got it.”
He calls after her when she starts walking to the stairs. “Hey, Elena.”
Elena turns and looks at him, looking as tired and miserable as he feels.
“Happy Birthday.”
For just a moment, she smiles. And she looks so much like the carefree girl he never really got to meet it makes his heart ache for what she’s lost.
“Thank you.”
“I have something for you.” Alaric holds up a hand before she can protest. “It’s not something I bought for you, I promise.” He pulls the small pendant out of his bag, holding it out to her. “I found this in my apartment the other day; I thought you might want it back.”
Elena’s eyes are fixed on the locket dangling from the chain in Alaric’s hand. Alaric knows the story, that Stefan gave it to her as a token of his love, that it means a lot to her, to them. Giving it back to her, now, on this day and with what Damon and he found out yesterday feels… weird. He shouldn’t get her hopes up, shouldn’t pretend he still believes that Stefan will just come back and everything will be all right again.
But it’s still her locket and they haven’t talked about how to tell her about what they had seen. And, right now, she needs something to cheer her up, if only for a little while.
It works; Elena finally looks up at him and smiles, a real smile. “Thank you,” she says softly and comes back to the couch, reaching out for the pendant. She looks at it, looks up at him. “Thanks.”
Alaric watches her head up the stairs and sinks down on the couch, sipping at his coffee.
This is going to be a long day.
~~~~*~~~~
It turns out he was right, it is a long day.
Alaric has just finished dressing and getting himself presentable, when Caroline calls and asks him to pick up glasses and plates and bring them over to the boarding house where the party will take place. As soon as he gets out of the car he’s knee-deep in party decorations and various preparations. He helps a lot more than he originally signed up for. Damon joins them late in the afternoon, insists on taking out as many of the expensive carpets as they can remove, but doesn’t lift a finger to help. He’s gone after he declares the upper rooms off-limits.
And then Alaric comes back out of the kitchen and the party has started.
Caroline has not kept it small. There are people everywhere. The boarding house, big and spacious as it is, is crowded; you can’t make a step without running into people. Or falling over them.
Caroline appears at his side suddenly, looking nervous. “She’s late,” she tells him, exasperated. “She’s late, she’s always late! It’s her birthday, it’s her party, why is she late?”
Before he can say a word, she’s gone again, disappearing into a sea of even more people.
He flees outside, finds a place to sit, close enough to keep an eye the living-room, but far away enough so that the music won’t deafen him. Watches kids he knows get drunk, a little shocked at how much alcohol most of them are able to drink and a lot ashamed that he just lets it happen. Doesn’t do anything against it.
Damon finds him who knows how much later. “Now you look like a party pooper,” he grins, sitting down next to Alaric, pushing a glass of bourbon into Alaric’s hand.
“I’m every parent’s worst nightmare,” Alaric moans, watching Michael Quinn, senior class, throw up into the bushes and then sway back into the house. “I’m the chaperone teacher from hell.”
Damon chuckles, raises his own glass in a toast. “I like high school parties.”
“Isn't Andie supposed to be coming?”
“Ten o’clock broadcast, she should be here in a little bit…”
Alaric looks up when Elena suddenly comes rushing out, looking annoyed.
“Hello birthday girl,” Damon grins. Elena ignores him, takes Damon’s glass right out of his hand.
“Jeremy’s smoking again,” she says, clearly upset.
Alaric groans inwardly, this is bad news. And it’s even worse he didn’t notice it before Elena did. Some guardian he is-
“Is his stash any good?”
Elena glares at Damon. “You’re an ass.” She turns to look at Alaric, her eyes pleading with him. “Talk to him, please. He looks up to you.”
Before he can voice the protest that is on his lips, Elena thrusts the glass back at Damon and stalks away.
Damon winks at him, grinning broader than ever. “You’re screwed.”
Alaric can’t argue against that.
Together they watch the kids get steadily drunker. Alaric is torn between stepping in and stopping the party altogether or just pretending it’s not as bad as it looks.
Damon’s phone beeps and he fishes it out of his pocket to read a text message. “Andie wants me to pick her up.”
Alaric snorts in amusement. “Your fake, compelled girlfriend wants you to be a chivalrous boyfriend.” If it wasn’t such a tragedy, it would almost be funny. Almost.
“Well, it's a complicated dynamic.” Damon gets up, looking around. “Hold the fort down, will you?”
Alaric sighs. “You mean the fort full of my drunk history students?”
Damon grins. As usual. “Drink more, you’ll feel less weird.”
~~~~*~~~~
Damon never comes back that night. Or, if he comes back, Alaric doesn’t see him. Which means it’s up to Alaric to finally put an end to the party and send the kids home. It takes him two long, long hours to shoo the last happily grinning student out of the house. Alaric gets slapped on the back a lot, called every variation of his name from ‘Mr. Ric’ to ‘Salty’ he can imagine and grins a lot. He tries to keep an eye on the driving situation, pulls at least four completely smashed students out of their cars and confiscates their keys. Caroline and Damon, who were both supposed to help him, never show up and Elena seems to be gone as well.
The place stinks. And it’s a mess.
And not his problem, not tonight.
Alaric is so tired he even contemplates crashing on the couch, but the smell drives him from the boarding house. He decides to stop at his own place on the way to the Gilbert house, needs to pick up a few things for the next couple of days. He spends several minutes standing outside his apartment, looking up at his windows from the street. He avoids coming back here; it doesn’t feel like his own flat anymore, after everything that’s happened here it feels more like a battlefield than an actual home.
When he opens the door he expects to be hit by the same weird smell that had driven him from the place in the past. There’d been blood, everywhere, on the floor, the counter, in the glasses. It had been a bitch to clean out and he couldn’t shake the stench of it for days.
His place doesn’t stink. The air smells a little stale, like he’s been away for a week and nobody opened the windows-but that’s it. Something has changed; something is different from the last time he was here. He can’t put his finger on it and stays in the open door, one hand on the knob, the other raised to turn on the light. Waiting for the, by now, familiar feeling of this-is-not-your-place-anymore to settle between his shoulder blades-but it doesn’t happen, there’s nothing, no weird feeling at the back of his neck, no hair standing on end, nothing. He must be a lot more drunk than he thought, his senses dulled and failing. For once the apartment feels normal. Like nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened here.
It’s weird and wrong, and at the same time it’s what he wants since he needs to move back here, he can’t stay at the Gilbert house forever. Alaric takes a slow step into the apartment, lets the door fall closed behind him with a soft click. Moonlight is falling through the windows and as his eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, he lets his gaze wander across the familiar room.
Alaric feels safe, for the first time since this nightmare began two months ago he feels at peace here. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, lets himself sink back against the closed door, enjoying the familiar atmosphere around him. His body relaxes, the tension in his neck easing, causing his shoulders to become heavy, like his whole body is trying to drag him down, to find some place to finally get some rest. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, running his hands through his hair.
“I need to sleep,” he says to the empty room, surprising himself with how tired his voice sounds. He’s dimly aware that he sits down on his bed a moment later, thinks about sending Elena a message to let her know where he is.
He’s still thinking about it when he falls asleep a few heartbeats later.
~~~~*~~~~
Alaric is out like a light. He doesn’t wake up in the night, he doesn’t lie awake for what feels like hours, he doesn’t feel like crap when he wakes up the next morning. He wakes up gradually, enjoys the sunlight warming his skin, listens to familiar sounds that tickle his awareness until he opens his eyes, slowly, squinting into the light. He fell asleep in his clothes, with his shoes and his jacket still on-and he wants a shower.
He starts the day slowly. The first cup of his own coffee tastes like heaven, not too bitter, not too hot. Perfect. He’s missed this, a lot, he’s missed waking up in his own place, having no one to look after but himself. Being able to just lean back and go through his mail, read the newspaper and relax. Have nowhere to go, nothing to do, just some time to himself.
His back is no longer hurting. The couch he’s been sleeping on all summer has really done a number on it, it’s the first day in weeks he hasn’t woken up with his neck all cramped up and that uncomfortable pull between his shoulder blades.
All in all he feels good.
Until his cell phone goes off. It takes him a moment to fish it out of his jeans and he pulls a face when he reads the caller name. Damon.
"Yeah?"
"Where the hell are you?" Damon doesn’t sound happy, quite the opposite to be exact.
"Home," Alaric answers, taking a sip of his perfect coffee. "What's up?"
"What's up? The place is a mess, you were supposed to help me with this, remember?"
Okay, this is more than not happy, Damon is pissed. And it’s definitely not about the place, that much Alaric can easily tell from his friend’s tone.
“You okay?”
“I’m fucking peachy, get your ass over here, it stinks.” Just like that, the line is cut.
That was a little intense, even for Damon on a bad day. Something big must have happened, something Damon doesn’t want to talk about on the phone.
Alaric takes a deep breath, looking around his place with a heavy heart. Fully awake now, he remembers exactly how wrong it had felt to be here the last time. Like the place didn’t belong to him, like he had no right to be here. Like he had been intruding on someone else’s’ territory. Compared to how he feels now, it’s like waking up from a bad dream, as if he’s finally shaken off a lingering feeling of dread that has only been there in his imagination.
He doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay, go back to bed. Sleep for a day. Not think about anything more complicated than “what do I like for breakfast again?”. Just shut out reality for a moment and find himself again. Get a rest, remember who he is and what he wants of his life.
He doesn’t stay. He gets up, gets dressed. Packs a few things and leaves the apartment.
~~~~*~~~~
Damon is in the living-room, throwing paper cups into a plastic bag. All windows are open wide, light and air streaming in through them-but it doesn’t really help with the strong smell in the room. Spilled alcohol and… other stuff Alaric doesn’t want to get too close to. The room is a mess, open bottles, paper plates on every surface available, pieces of the horribly pink birthday cake smeared over the couches, on the floor, paper cups sitting in the middle of spilled wine on one of the tables, the various bowls decorated with candles and… other stuff…
Oh it was a party, all right.
Alaric slowly walks into the room, shrugging out of his jacket, grinning. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
The dark scowl on Damon’s face quickly sobers him up.
“Very funny.”
Damon is so tense it seems only one wrong word will set him off. Alaric decides that slow is the way to go with him right now, keeping his voice deliberately neutral. “Where were you last night, you were supposed to help me send the kids home?"
"I was a little busy trying to save my fake compelled girlfriend from my off-the-rails dickhead of a brother." Damon sounds so matter-of-fact it actually takes Alaric a moment to get what he’s saying.
"Stefan was here?"
Damon continues throwing trash into the bag, never once meeting Alaric’s eyes. "Stefan sent me a message, compelled her off a high-stage to teach me a lesson. I'm supposed to leave him alone, to let him go."
Damon is pissed… and shocked. Hurting. Alaric has seen him like this before, when Rose died. When Damon had mentioned that in passing and then immediately changed the subject. He straightens, eyes on Damon, the house-the chaos forgotten.
“How is she? Did he-“
“She’s dead. Broke her neck.” Matter of fact. Again. Still doesn’t fool Alaric, not for a second.
There’s a moment of silence. Alaric should say something, but everything he can think of, will come out wrong.
I’m sorry doesn't mean anything. But he is.
You should have seen it coming. Because Damon should have, they both should have.
It’s your fault, you dragged her into this, you kept her in this. It’s true and Damon knows this. Better than anyone. Just like Alaric knows Damon never meant for her to get hurt. Or killed. But not wanting something to happen doesn’t keep people safe.
Alaric is thinking too much and the moment is over.
“At least we’ll find out who’ll report her death now,” Damon says, all false cheeriness, and stalks off into the adjoining room, getting a second plastic bag. “You finish the living-room, I’ll be upstairs cleaning the mess the kids made in the places someone forgot to keep them away from.”
And then he’s gone. Leaving Alaric alone in a room that looks pretty much as bad as he’s feeling right now.
~~~~~*~~~~~
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