everyonelives | for the rest of us death will be a relief

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. )

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.]

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. )

[Cami nods.]

So you had these romantic feelings for her, but she had chosen Stefan. Then suddenly she chooses you. And then how long before you realized she was sired to you?

The next fucking day.

( Excuse his language and he fists a handful of air because he hasn't thought about it like that. )

We had our first night together and Stefan and Caroline put their heads together and figured out she was sired to me.

[Cami's job is to keep her feelings out of it, but she won't lie and say that part of her isn't relieved. Not that it couldn't have happened sooner, but at least they figured it out before it goes too far. Her personal feelings stay off her face, however, because right now, this isn't about Elena.]

That must have been heartbreaking.

[That the person you clearly cared for may or may not have any real feelings for you. That it may just be a trick of the magic that made them vampires.]

I wanted it to be all her. It wasn't fair to her and so I separated us.

( He took Donovan and Little Gilbert to the cabin and Elena stayed behind. )

Did you manage to break the bond?

[There are a lot of different ways you can do it, from her understanding.]

Technically? She broke it, first, by turning off her humanity. When Stefan, me, and her friend Matt got it back, we knew the sirebond was gone. She wasn't listening to me, anymore. Doing what I told her to do. Which, for the record, I never did. It was even when I said something casual. Anyway, once she worked through her anger, she chose me. And then she shoved the cure we were all trying to give her down Katherine's throat, but that's irrelevant.

[Cami nods, Katherine and Elena's dynamic is not why we're here.]

So she chose you, and you were together, no sire bond. What happened next?

We were together. And, it was good, for like, a summer. And then I had to keep secrets and we got in the middle of Stefan being a doppelganger, which was fun, and then I was captured by vampire scientists. Also fun. Katherine had a whole deathbed party - we had the party, she was on her deathbed - and without us knowing, she stole Elena's body. She then proceeded to break-up with me, though Elena tried to run back the last time she had a hold of her body and the permanence spell went through. Angry at everything, I killed one of her friends on campus. He also held the namesake of the college that had captured me. Also, I had a vampire killing virus inside me. We figured out Katherine, but she injected herself with the virus before going not at all gentle into that bad, bad night. Elena came back, realized I had fucked up. We had this toxic push-and-pull and we were off for a while, and then... when it all came down to it, she recommitted and said I was her home. And I agreed. This was all ( He holds a hand up, one finger ) one school year. And this was all before Bonnie and I got sucked into oblivion and everyone then thought we'd died.

[Cami's eyebrows go up as she listens to all of that because ... wow.

She's taking a lot of notes. They're going to have to spin off some of those events, but she still wants to look at the full narrative.]

I heard Mystic Falls was brutal but ... that seems more intense than I expected.

Yeah, you don't want to hear about Elena's junior and senior year. That was even more breakneck. Anyway, I was dead and Elena was inconsolable. So much so that she convinced my best friend to erase all her memories of our relationship.

( He just wants that button to drop. )

[Cami's eyebrows go up.]

That must have hurt. Coming back and finding out that all the progress you worked to make for this relationship just ... erased.

She avoided me. Hated me, because the last thing she remembered was me breaking her brother's neck. He's fine. Magic family ring. I was going through something. Years before. Anyway. I fought my way back into her heart. She couldn't deny us, eventually, and then things got so good, we decided to take the cure together. Another cure came into play because of the oblivion Bonnie and I were in. Formerly. Prison world.

( He waits to see if she knows what they are. )

[She's heard of them, and she nods. Then her brow furrows.]

Did she get her memories back? Or were you starting fresh, in a sense?

Starting fresh, but, after she took the cure and was subsequently targeted by my now homicidal formerly dead vampire mom, all the memories came flooding back. And then we were us again. But, new and improved. All the water was under the bridge. We came together for Alaric, former best friend's, wedding.

( Alls well didn't end well. )

Let me guess. This wedding was of the red variety?

[She watched Game of Thrones. She is with the pop culture and she's learning from the way the rest of this relationship has been shaking out.]

His fiancee was targeted by her formerly imprisoned heretic brother - ( He pauses. ) Long story really short, a curse made it mandatory she and her brother "merged." She kept her body, absorbed his everything else, but I guess over time he laid dormant and grew in power. He took over her body, made a mess and stuck Elena in a sleeping beauty curse. One that would only end when her friend Bonnie dies. And Bonnie was 20-something years old. At the time. This was about betraying Bonnie and Elena got the brunt of it. Though, I did leave him in the prison world he escaped from.

( Maximum effect. )

Edited 2025-11-04 00:58 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the Gemini Curse.

[She knows Josie, through Hope, and Josie talks about it sometimes. Mostly when Cami has her good therapist face on. But she absorbs everything else and nods.]

I'm guessing by Bonnie not being dead that you figured out a way to wake her up.

Bonnie did. And then she was back. And awake and she spent a few weeks going through the motions. And we argued. And the real world cracked everything we had carefully built.

( He hears himself, how much he's bullshitting. Stacking everything, one after the other, remembering calling the both of them toxic, remembering erasing her memory of that necklace... But, he waits for Cami to call him on it. There was nothing carefully built. No time for their relationship to breathe outside of everything. )

[Cami would prefer not to put in the context of calling someone on it. Especially since she can tell from the look on his face that he knows that isn't entirely true. But it's not so much a lie as the thing he wants to believe.]

I can see why you would put it that way. Because from what you laid out, it seems like the timing was never quite right. Either she was with your brother, or there was a sire bond, or some other supernatural event taking place.

[There's no blame in her tone, just drawing a conclusion from the information given.]

But do you think it was timing? Truly? Having laid all of that relationship out, if you sit and be honest with yourself, why do you think you and Elena didn't work?

She told me. Because, when she, as a vampire, finally decided, herself to put everything on the line and take the cure with me, she was put into a coma. And in that coma, she thought through everything. Did everything I'm doing one-sided. And she... came to her own conclusions. And nothing was the same when she woke up and I did a terrible thing while she was sleeping. And she couldn't get past that. You don't have to tell me, because I know.

( He thinks he does, anyway. )

That's how she feels. Her reasons.

[She will push this because this is her job.]

What are yours?

[Because as much as he says he was hanging on to her, he could have pushed the issue. He could have fought harder. But there was a reason he didn't.]

She - we - because it shouldn't be that hard. Because the odds shouldn't stack up again and again. Because when it comes down to it, I was right when we broke up the first time. We're toxic. We've always been toxic.

( He lets that go, sagging back into the couch, wishing he had something to drink. )

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