for the rest of us death will be a relief

[praevaricatio]

Comments

[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. )

[bravebartender]

How did that work out?

[Clearly it didn't last. Did she not take to being a vampire?]

[unforgivably]

It worked for a time. She was obsessed with me. Which I liked for a while, but then it got old. She was also in love with me before I turned her, so, you can probably put those dots together.

( She was his first siring. )

It wasn't until years later that I put two and two together. History repeated itself with Elena. At first, anyway.

[bravebartender]

[Cami's brow furrows because she does know something about sire bonds. They're supposed to be incredibly rare, outside of specific hybrid-Mikaelson situations.]

Two sire bonds. That sounds unlucky. How did you feel when you realized that that was part of your connection?

[unforgivably]

With her or with Elena.

( Aren't they two different thoughts? )

[bravebartender]

[They may, they may not. The sire bond itself is it's own entity.]

Either. Both. But let's start with Elena, since she's the one who brought you here.

[unforgivably]

I pushed her away. I was convinced it was the sirebond that even wanted her with me. She fought to convince me it was the other way around. It took me a long time to believe it. And a lot happened in between.

( Maybe things that could have been prevented, if he were there for her. But he never felt he was worthy in the first place. To feel like there was this caveat there. It felt right. Like, of course that's why Elena loves me. Wants me. )

[bravebartender]

How long did you have feelings for her before you got together?

[She knows, vaguely, that Elena and Stefan were together, but she's not sure how long Damon was invested in her.]

[unforgivably]

Not long in the grand scheme of a human life, but I realized I had feelings for her... five months into meeting her. I kissed Katherine, I thought it was her. It was Founders Day. We kissed seven months after that. Elena and me. Stefan was off the rails, dimmer-switching, and she was... conflicted. We kissed again on a road trip to get her brother back. Then, Blonde Ambition insisted she see if there's still something between her and Stefan. She chose Stefan, officially, and then she died. Anyway, it was November 28th, after the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. We drank a little, we danced a little. We kissed. So. Less than a year, February - November.

( A while. )