things you said that I wasn’t meant to hear;
Damon is slumped over the couch when Elena slips into the boarding house. Alaric frowns; she doesn’t look herself, her hair’s a mess, there’s no way she’d wear that sweater out of the house. Damon glances up, and then back at the fire. He doesn’t roll his eyes, but that might be a near thing.
Alaric says nothing because neither of them would hear anyway, and it’s less depressing to think about that when he’s silent. He just watches as Elena pours herself a drink and curls her little self into an armchair.
He’s probably being creepy. He can’t bring himself to care. He follows Damon around a lot. Jeremy, too. Elena from time to time but the truth is she’s doing better than most. Maybe not today.
“If you’re gonna drink yourself oblivious,” Damon says, without looking up, “you should at least drink something you like.”
“Well, you don’t have a margarita machine,” she answers. “And I don’t care what it tastes like. I’m brooding. I learned from the best. You and Stefan are world champions.”
“And what are you brooding about?”
She sighs, and tucks her knees up under her chin.
“I don’t like being a vampire,” she says. “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I don’t like it and I’m no good at it.” She looks to be trying to hold her insides in. A few months ago Alaric would have sat alongside her and pulled her close, let her cry on him. He wishes Damon would do it. “What about you? Why are you so miserable?”
Damon grits his teeth, and sits up.
“I was in love with Alaric,” he says, “and I never told him.”
Alaric feels a chill, feels his forehead knot. It aches. And he’s dead, now, and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. All those times he’d nearly just said fuck it, leaned in and taken a shot, and now…
Damon stands, and drains his drink, and leaves Elena with her jaw hanging low, off to burn off some energy in the forest.