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Damon Salvatore was many things and had lived many lives but there was only one thing he was good at. He was good at fucking things up. It didn't really matter if he had the best intentions at heart or if he was always right in the end, he was always wrong. The truth was, Damon longed to be the man he was in 1864 and that was his biggest kept secret. Even if he had told anyone, they wouldn't have believed him -- except maybe Ric.
Fucking Ric.
Had to go and die on him. Had to leave this huge hole in his chest where his heart used to be, leave him alone with the children.
Fucking Ric.
Damon never knew what to say when things went shitty. He didn't have the capacity for words or understanding that Ric had. He had been the conscience that Damon believed he had lost all those years somewhere on the road. Somewhere between Albequerque and New Orleans, he figured is where he had lost it. The years between the first Great World War and the Second. Definitely after his meeting with Stefan in New Orleans sealed the coffin on his conscience and he gained it back when he met Ric.
Fucking Ric.
Damon sat on a headstone in the oldest part of the cemetery and sighed at the stone in front of him. Damon found himself talking to more often than a little bit. Perhaps it was delusional, perhaps it was irrational most of the time. Other times, he thought it was making a difference, talking to a piece of granite, that Ric could hear him but Damon wasn't so damn sure of that. He wasn't sure about much anymore.
"I had her, RIc. For a second," he said, his voice slurred with all manner of bourbon, polishing off his third bottle. He had come with an arsenal with the intent of going blind with drink and hopefully passing out here. Sometimes he wished he didn't wake up -- any plane of existence is better than the one he was currently in at the moment. Damon snapped his fingers to punctuate what he was saying. "Jus' a second and then that fuckin' cure and let's not forget that ... goddamn sire bond," he growled, taking a slug of the bourbon and glaring at a nearby tree. Damon was just so damn mad at the world and everything in it. "Now it's all gone to shit as everythin' tends t'do with me and fuck you Ric."
Fucking Ric.
"Fuck you with your ... humanity and your dyin' and your gettin' in," he muffled, standing up and pointing at the headstone, silent as ever, standing sentinel as a reminder of the life lost and the body buried beneath. Here Lies Alaric Fucking Saltzman. La-tee-dah. "Fuck you for leavin' me here alone with no one and the children, you owe me fuckin' big, Saltzman. Bourbon for eternity, that's what you owe me."
Damon sniffed and took another slug of the bourbon, turning around in a circle in place. He exhaled a little bit and turned back to the stone. "And let me tell you another goddamn thing," He pointed at the stone again, wagging a finger at it. As if talking at it didn't look ridiculous enough. "I know you're floatin' around up there with your ten virgins and your wings, but you get your goddamn ghosty ass back down here. You better be fuckin' waitin' for me man." He sniffed again. "You better be savin' me a goddamn seat."
He looked down at the bourbon bottle in his hand and he took another slug. "I'm tired, Ric. So fuckin' tired. A hundred and forty something years of the same ole fuckin' thing, chasin' the same ole fuckin' girl and gettin' nowhere. I'm tired. You understand that right?" And a gust of wind nearby, shaking the last leaves in the trees. "Oh don't you judge me, Saltzman, I'm allowed to be fuckin' tired if I want to. You got no room, ghost man." He realized what he said and laughed a bit. "Oh fuck," he looked down at the ground and dug his toe into it, taking another slug of bourbon.
"But I'm done, man. Just ... done."
He tossed the empty bourbon bottle against a tree, the sound of shattering glass making a mighty sound in the confined area of the old cemetery. He looked back down at the stone in front of him, his posture wobbly. He sat down on his knees and slid his fingers against the letters of Ric's name, tracing every single one. The stark lines and angles of the A in Alaric, all the way to the N in Saltzman.
He sat up and reached behind him for a stake that he had hidden in the waistband of his jeans. He pointed it at Ric's stone and waggled it, sniffing and laughing ironically. "Don't you judge me, Saltzman." He shifted to sit up on his knees straight, pressing the point of the wooden stake just to the left and down a bit -- he knew that would hit home. "I'm tired, so fuckin' tired and y'better be savin' me a seat."
And with vampire strength, Damon plunged the stake into his own heart.