for the rest of us death will be a relief

[praevaricatio]

Comments

[unforgivably]

( He shakes her hand, making his way inside her office. )

It's nice to meet you, too. I've heard very little about you. But, I make it a point to not ask about Klaus.

( They don't get along and he doesn't care. He hopes that doesn't ruin this before it starts. He thinks not being emotionally invested is actually a good thing. )

[bravebartender]

I think that's good actually. I don't really know much about you either. We can start on an even playing field.

[They don't have a lot of preconceived notions of each other. Though she's sure he has an opinion about the fact that she married Klaus Mikaelson, but most people do. That doesn't say anything about each other in his professional relationship.

She gestures for him to take one of the seats. Her office is a small but comfortable, with well-worn furniture and a warm, airy space. It feels in some ways like an old library.]

We can start with a couple ground rules if that works for you?

[unforgivably]

( That sounds right to him. He runs an arm along the back of the couch he sits at as he gets just comfortable enough. He's going to get a spiel. Some ground rules. Bring them on. )

Works for me.

[bravebartender]

The first is that everything that is said in this room stays between us, not only what we discuss but also the fact that you're here. This is your information to share, and unless you invite someone into these sessions, I won't say anything to anyone. I'm also on vervain, so they can't even compel it out of me.

[Which she absolutely did because she's been compelled before and she knows that even as a vampire she isn't safe.]

The second is that this isn't going to be me telling you how to fix your life. This is something we're going to figure out together. I may ask you some questions you may not like, and in the end, you don't have to answer them, but this does work better if you're willing to engage and answer them honestly. I'm not here to judge you, Damon. I'm here to try and help you. The hardest part is showing up, and you've already done that.

[unforgivably]

Nifty.

( But, he agrees, nodding. )

Well, then it's a banner day for Damon Salvatore. ( He sits forward, bringing his arm down. ) I'm not taking this lightly. I could've spent my morning somewhere else, but I had this, so I left that. I'm here. And, I doubt that's the hardest part, but you're the expert, so I'll take your word for it. ( He sits back again. ) Let's get down and dirty.

[bravebartender]

Alright.

[Down and dirty it is. But speaking of that:]

My first question then is what are you looking to get out of these sessions? I think goals are good, especially when we're navigating vampire experiences. You've been alive for a long time, and trying to unpack all of that trauma is a large endeavor. I've found it effective to start with smaller goals and tackle them one at a time.

[unforgivably]

It doesn't take a shrink to know that I fall into patterns. And, until very recently, I thought I'd broken by pattern - gone straight - did everything a single, upstanding guy should while keeping my ex-girlfriend turned friend at arm's length out of respect. Even tried to date a little bit. Which, was a nonstarter, in one case and fun for awhile in the other.

( He holds a hand up. )

But, that's not a goal, is it? I don't know, I want to get over a resentment I really didn't know I'd been harboring for... longer than I want to admit, but we're all vampires here, so - two decades. Elena was in the coma. We pledged our love beforehand. The coma ends and -- that love did, too.

So, I guess I'm trying to say that my goal is to... let her go. Actually let the one that got away go because I really thought she was the love of my life. She left my brother for me. We tried to keep away from one another during one of our off periods but we were - combustible. She erased me from her memory - Alaric's Original period pre-town line - and we still found a way back to one another. But, a coma. Four years. Maybe we didn't have the kind of love I thought, or, maybe I have to stop thinking like that, right. The love we had meant something. It can always mean something. I want to not do this. To ramble on about a relationship that ended twenty years ago. And I want to, honest-to-god, maybe make a real effort at dating a girl without turning around and thinking about Elena Gilbert.

[bravebartender]

Okay.

[She'll take some notes as he talks, of points they'll have to come back to. She then considers the information carefully.]

You were turned in 1864, weren't you? Two decades isn't that long a time when we're thinking on a vampire scale. Though on a human scale, I can see how that would be frustrating.

[unforgivably]

It's not, but Elena is human now. She took the cure. To her, two decades, time's passing. She became a doctor. She's still beloved in town. She's got her legacy, and - technically, her and I were the last two. The stragglers still in Mystic Falls. Lockwood, doesn't count because the Armory is outside of town. But, my brother, Bonnie, - I guess Caroline's at the Salvatore school but you can't take a Forbes out of Mystic Falls. And Caroline has a boyfriend.

[bravebartender]

[She nods as she considers that, but she's not really looking to deal with Elena's feelings. Her job here is to consider Damon's.]

Is that why you think you were holding on to her? Because it was just the two of you?

[unforgivably]

I don't know. Until a few days ago, I didn't even know I was holding on to her. And, I put that on her, which wasn't nice of me. Called her out of the blue and brought everything back up.

( Damon has a myriad of less than shining moments. Some are downright dark. But this wasn't one of the good ones, no. )

[bravebartender]

The fact that you can recognize that is good.

[Not rocket science, but so many people skip over that when they're holding on to resentments like this. That putting it on other people isn't fair.]

Did it feel cathartic at all?

[Because two things can be true at once, and maybe getting it all off his chest was helpful, even if he didn't do it in the best way.]

[unforgivably]

Maybe.

( But, also maybe not yet. But maybe like it's step one up to catharsis. The first step is admitting you had a problem. )

But it wasn't fair.

[bravebartender]

No, it probably wasn't.

[She considers briefly.]

Have you had a lot of relationships like you had with Elena?

[It seems like an odd question for someone nearly two hundred years old but she's found that it's actually not common. That a lot of vampires have more transitory relationships. Nothing with the same level of commitment-or consent, if she's honest.]

[unforgivably]

No. She was - it for me. My blindspot.

( He rubs his jaw, an emphatic gesture following but, no. She doesn't count. )

There was Katherine, but she doesn't compare to Elena at all.

[bravebartender]

Katherine was the one who turned you, right? You and Stefan both?

[Klaus has opinions about Katherine Pierce, but Cami wants to see her through Damon's eyes.]

[unforgivably]

Katherine posed as an orphan from Atlanta, whose parents died in a fire. Our father took her in. She took a liking to both Stefan and I. Stefan, first, but I returned from the war. ( His going AWOL is another story altogether. ) She strung us both along. She showed me one night what she was and I wasn't afraid. But, she showed Stefan and his delicate sensibilities were shaken - and so she compelled him to not be afraid.

( He had a complex about this for a very long time, now he's just talking about it. )

[bravebartender]

Why weren't you afraid?

[It probably was a badge of honor at the time. That he didn't fear her when Stefan did. But she's curious as to why that was his reaction.]

[unforgivably]

I don't know. I had seen monsters all my life. Men were monsters. On the battlefield. Our father. Katherine was delicate and playful and insufferable, the fact that she was a monster, it didn't matter. She wasn't monstrous..

( He needs to unpack it further, but that's his surface-level, I don't want to quite dig into that further yet. Though, he knows he will. He leaves it open to probe. )

[bravebartender]

She was your monster, rather than one being wielded against you.

[A sentiment she understands all too well. She spent more time calling Klaus on his shit than it seems Damon did with Katherine, but she understands the comfort of having a monster who cares most for you, who will do what it takes to protect you but never show you the same harm.]

But at the same time she wasn't, not really. She was Stefan's monster too. Did that ever make you angry?

[unforgivably]

Not then. I knew who she was and what she was doing. I didn't mind sharing. I shared everything with Stefan. ( Except for near catatonia, PTSD from being a desserter, the abuse at the hands of his father... ) But, she went and faked her death. We thought she'd died in a church fire. And our father learned we were vampire sympathizers, Stefan, because he was compelled - or, so he believes, I can't say one way or another - anyway, our father shot us. Each. And we died with Katherine's blood in our systems.

[bravebartender]

[Her eyebrows go up and she makes another note. Yeah, they're definitely going to have to come back to Giuseppe at some point. But she doesn't want to divert too much from the topic at hand.]

Was that the end of your relationship? After you turned, when was the next time you saw Katherine?

[unforgivably]

That was the end of our relationship. The next time I saw Katherine, I didn't know it was Katherine. I thought she was Elena.

( And her kissed her on her front porch. Well, she kissed him. )

[bravebartender]

[She nods once.]

So why such a long gap between relationships? That had to be what? A century? Century and a half? Did you just not meet the right person?

[unforgivably]

I didn't say I didn't have relationships. First, I denounced even having a brother because Stefan insisted we finish our transition, so that put a damper on my romantic possibilities. But, I had dalliances and flirtations. And then, there was Charlotte. We met in 1942 in New Orleans. We were seeing each other and she learned what I was and insisted I turned her. I loved her, too, so I did.

( He clearly has more to say, but it's good to give her the pieces and not long diatribes. )