everyonelives | because the lives of the wicked should be made brief

( Damon Salvatore may say he's working on himself. He may tell the villain of the week that he's growing as a person - or trying to - but at the end of the day, Damon Salvatore will always be Damon Salvatore. And if he ever admitted it to himself, other adjectives will always follow his name: unlovable, undeserving, selfish, violent, murderer. Is he those things or did he embrace those things. Does he use himself as the excuse?

Wes wasn't there, so, he can't speak to why Damon did what he did. Why he desiccated for years. He didn't live in Damon's shoes. He remembers Elena's proposal so clearly. He remembers sitting on the old porch swing. He remembers keeping watch outside of Caroline's cell. He remembers every moment he and Elena clawed back what they were to one another before all the compulsion stripped away. He remembers her waking up and visiting Matt's grace and walking away one big "happy," family.

And he remembers everything else. A few good weeks. Elena putting on a brave face. Thinking he was being there for her. He remembers shutting someday down because of his own insecurities.

Elena, the vampire, loved Damon, the vampire. But, Elena, the human, didn't belong with him. And it broke them again.

And he spent years burying it. And buying the Mystic Grill - what the fuck. That was their shared dream, Elena in med school and Damon owning the bar - living above it. He's been chasing that "dream" ever since except one factor would never materialize. He made jokes and his brother moved away and moved on and Elena moved away and moved on and Damon -- )

Everyone not on the boat. It's done. Two more supremes are now with the ancestors. Or, maybe they're in Cade's hell. Or, some oblivion we haven't discovered yet.

( He's stalling. )

I'm calling because I'm leaving town. Home. Sold The Mystic Grille and everything.

[Good riddance is what she wants to say regarding the witches involved, but when he moves on to the next thing, the statement dies on her lips, and she can't help but blink in surprise.]

Oh, wow.

[There's an odd stirring of feelings in her chest, with another person leaving home and putting it behind them. It's caught quickly by the statement that she also has left home in a more or less permanent fashion. Why should Damon tether himself there if he doesn't want to be there?]

That's good? You're excited about it?

Am I excited about it. I'm - ready to put it behind me. Finally. ( Maybe. ) You should know you drove me to the brink of insanity. Well, an argument could be made all my own decisions drove me to the brink of insanity, but I feel better when I have you to blame. ( He doesn't mean it, he hopes that it's clear. His glib nature. Remember, she's brave and stupid, he's glib and arrogant. ) I'm going to start therapy.

[Even if she does hear the glibness, she can't help that part of her gut twists at the words all the same. At the pressure that comes with being this pillar of goodness that these vampires cling to. She cares about Damon, she probably always will, but what they had isn't really sustainable.

But that last sentence hits her like a gut punch.]

Really?

[Part of her reacts with disbelief, unsure what to make of this ... suddenly healthy life choice.]

That's ... really good, Damon. I hope it helps.

And I hope I don't run off Klaus Mikaelson's wife.

( She's his therapist. Almost. He got a referral. )

Did you hear about Scotland?

I did. Bonnie was keeping us updated.

[She didn't want to be sending calls all over the place, not knowing what they were getting into.]

It sounded awful.

I was trapped for most of it with Rhett and Scarlett's progeny and new boyfriend to Mickey the hunter.

( But, that's his way of using humor to make it clear that, yep, it was definitely awful up above and in some of the tunnels. )

I liked the violent part. Vampires and witches had it coming.

I'm sure they did.

[It sounded like, in her mind, a situation where violence is necessary. She also thinks that it's very true to form that the hunter they kidnapped and turned would fall in love with someone close at hand.]

Though it sounds like Wes got under your skin.

He thinks I have some underlying issues.

( Does he care what Wes thinks? No! Does that make what Wes thinks any less true. Well, he's not the doctor, is he. )

You?

[She can't help the fondness that creeps into her tone, because if there ever was anyone in need of therapy it's probably Damon Salvatore, but she also doesn't want to scare him off of this choice he's made.]

I can't think of any reason why he'd say that.

[Her tone is a bit wry, with just a little teasing to it.]

Me neither.

( On the other end of the line, a smile creeps up. Like old times. Why don't they ever do this? )

We never talked about it, how you woke up and everything that we thought we were holding onto just - wasn't like it was. ( They argued at the time. And said things they didn't mean. Maybe some they did. But, after she made the decision to move away, things remained strained. ) I really thought we were it, Elena.

There were times when I did too.

[She doesn't want to lie about that. To make him think she misrepresented her feelings when they were together and they made all their plans. What changed wasn't anything that was his fault but more choices she made that brought what they were into stark relief, and then left too long to stew with her own thoughts.

She steps back until she feels her back hit a wall, using it to support her as she tries to figure out how to put this into words. The way he's talking, this feels like a goodbye. Goodbyes are the things she hates the most. Even all these years later, her fatal flaw is always her inability to let go. But sometimes you have to. Sometimes holding on tightly doesn't serve anyone but yourself.

And she can't say she hasn't been thinking about him lately. Not when she was with Dean, but after, on the plane, when she had too much time with her own thoughts.]

You know, something came up this weekend and I was thinking a lot about when you and Bonnie were in the prison world and I thought you were dead, so I had Ric compel us away. I ... I didn't know it then, but I think that was the beginning of the end.

Edited 2025-08-06 23:34 (UTC)

( Times?

He'd hope there were years she thought they'd be together. Time spent as Sleeping Beauty. Time with her in college, not counting their painful, if erotically charged break-up time. And then time back together. Time on the front porch. Time at the B and B. Lots of benches in their past. The day they got caught in the rain.

There are memories he'd locked away, buried under a job well done and a new house. Memories his brother moved on from. Memories he was supposed to move on from. )

There were times I thought it was. I got mad at Stefan, at Ric for letting you do that. But, we fought our way back. I gave you space and then you came back to me, Elena. You fought to get your memories back. You accepted our love story, embraced it and chose us as your future. I was going to take the cure.

[Elena takes a deep breath, knowing she's in public, and not wanting to make a scene. But she can't help but grit her teeth and close her eyes and ask the question.]

Why do you do that? I make a choice, one that hurts you, and you deflect it onto someone else like the only choices I can make for myself are the ones that you like.

I'm not saying you can only make choices I like, but Alaric could've, I don't know, talked to you. Grief isn't insurmountable. ( It's a flippant way of putting it, and he sighs. ) Stefan could've gotten out from under whatever car he was working on and seen you in person before you unilaterally made a decision that made you hate me all over again!

( And at least, from that one word's emphasis, he is finally feeling the frustration she deserves. He can only hold Alaric and Stefan and Caroline and everyone else accountable until he holds the one person responsible for it accountable. )

Because it was my choice to make! It was my memories, my life, and you were dead!

[She takes a deep breath, trying not to shout, but the tension in her voice is still there.]

And you don't think Ric tried? We spent hours, pouring over the layers of our relationship, trying to find the moment when I fell in love with you to knock down the rest of the dominoes. He constantly tried to talk me out of it, but I chose to keep going. Because I couldn't ...

[Couldn't live with the person she saw when she looked in the mirror. Couldn't live without all the pieces of herself she shaved away in order to be in love with him. All the knots she tied to convince herself that what she was doing was fine when she knew it wasn't.

She closes her eyes as she leans back against the wall again.]

I can't claim that I manage grief well. I probably never have. But I did it. So be angry with me. Not with people who weren't there or people who did their best to try and convince me not to.

No, I wasn't!

( He yells under his breath, knowing she thought he'd died and it's a moot point all around. )

Except, you did, Elena. You found Stefan and you dug yourself out of your grief. I saw that, firsthand. And, you got your brother through it. You persevered and made emotional speeches about how life doesn't just end. What was so different about losing me?

( Fine. He's not mad at them. He's mad at her. Mad at relying on him too much. At falling apart so hard. At not believing in them. At not picking herself up and moving on but not away. If she would've just waited. )

You died and your feelings for me amplified, which - you survived when we'd just broken up, but then, I "die," and - you, you pick apart every iota of our relationship just to find the one strand that unravels the unrivaled, passionate love we shared.

( a beat. )

What did it. What was the final domino you knocked down. ( His eyes narrow. ) When was it. When did you fall in love with me?

[Unrivaled and passionate. That it was. But it also brought out the worst parts of both of them, and she still doesn't understand why he doesn't see that.

She doesn't want to answer the question. She doesn't know what it would help. It's been almost two decades since the day it happened, but she opened the door. She can't back away now because she finds the answer inconvenient.]

My birthday. When you gave me back my necklace.

( He wouldn't have called that. He doesn't know what moment he'd pick. Maybe in the motel room, a hair's breadth away from one another. Getting her humanity back, and her choice, and deciding Damon. It had been that long? )

You loved me for that long, you lost me, you cried for months, you went to Luke Parker and sicced Sara Salvatore on us as a result - accidentally - you were inconsolable, Elena. And that's just what I was told. I was told to leave it, and I didn't. We almost made it.

( He pauses. )

If Kai hadn't crashed Ric's wedding, and I'd taken the cure, where do you think we would be right now?

( Because, he knows. Happy. )

I don't know.

[And she doesn't want to dwell on the what ifs, because what if isn't going to change what is. He's not going to be able to take the cure in her lifetime at this point, thanks to Rebekah, and she and Dean are working towards things that she's sure they both want, not what felt like compromises to try and keep her happy.]

That curse ... it wasn't like I just closed my eyes and woke up all those years later and no time had passed for me. I felt that time too. And I sat there, parsing through all of those memories, parsing through all the good that I had given away, but I also saw all of the compromises I made for you that didn't feel good. All of the ways I kept hoping that you would change into someone better for me, only to be disappointed later. Of the ways that I disappointed people because I was in love with someone who hurt them and actively chose that person over them, or how people suffered because you were in love with me.

[The gut fear that she would wake up sooner than expected because Damon's impatience would overwhelm whatever love he does have for Bonnie and she would be a sacrifice to what he wanted.]

I kept telling myself, when we were together, that I would love you and you would change. But the underside of that is ... if I was only loving you for the expectation that you would change, could that really be considered loving you?

[She didn't think it was. That was the conclusion that she came to in the end. But even that wasn't truly the nail in the coffin.]

And then I woke up and Matt was dead.

I was brainwashed by a siren. You know what she did? Edited herself into all of our greatest hits so I'd stay loyal. Stripped my humanity away. That's an oldie-but-a-goody. Stefan, too, recruited by the devil. How many times can I say that I'm sorry about Matt Donovan?!

( He raises his voice a little too loudly for the airport, as he looks around himself. )

I know, Damon!

[She knows. She knows it wasn't his fault. But that doesn't mean that him apologizing fixes it. Not when she was already seeing all cracks in their relationship that she couldn't unsee.]

And you only had to apologize once. But it wasn't going to change the fact that I wasn't happy. And I didn't see a way of fixing that. I didn't want to hurt you, but holding on was only going to make it worse.

We were. We were happy, Elena. I remember it and you remember it. We made real plans.

( And then Lily and Kai and everyone else fucked it all up. She was going to go to med school and he was going to own a bar. They had it worked out. )

Edited 2025-08-12 22:15 (UTC)

I'm not saying we weren't. But things change. I changed.

[She scrubs a hand over her face, trying not to cave and hang up. But she feels like she needs to shove a nail into this coffin that apparently has been lingering open for over a decade without her realizing it.]

And now I'm in love with someone else.

[Because she is. With someone who makes her laugh, and respects her choices and wants what she wants without it feeling like he's doing it just to make her happy.]

And I held out.

( Except for Krystal with a K. )

Because, in the end, what got me through Sybil the Siren's enslavement, Stefan's return to the dark side, oh and literal hellfire is remembering you would wake up one day. And we'd be together. Like we promised.

( He sighs, holding his fist tightly in the air. )

Maybe you missed it, or didn't believe Ric or Jo or, hell, Caroline who helped get me out of my own head, ( again, literally. ) but I grew. I evolved.

( He shakes his head, stalking away from a child staring at him. )

I broke Sybil's hold on me, I forgave my brother, I ascended. I was a new man. It's never going to be enough, Elena. Even though you and I both know we were. ...I'm obviously not pitching a redux to Damon and Elena, the tortured years.

( What is he even doing! )

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