❝where did my humanity go?❞

DAMON SEEMED TO FINALLY BE ABLE TO TAKE A BREATH OF RELIEF WHEN HE SHUT THE TOMB ON KATHERINE. He finally got to lock her in the tomb, like he had come to Mystic Falls to do in the first place. He got to listen to her cry behind the closed door, and maybe feel an inkling of what he'd felt for the past 170 years.

She took everything from him. His wife, his family, his happiness. He'd spent the better half of his immortal years trying to track her down and he finally thought he had her, only to find out it was all a lie. He only got angrier, the resentment that had festered in him for all those years had finally burst and he simply didn't care about anything besides hurting Katherine Pierce in any way possible.

And shutting that tomb door on her as she begged him not to was a wonderful start.

Now, all he had to do with his life was drink himself numb at the only decent bar in Mystic Falls and feign concern over Elena's perpetual need to be saved.

He sipped his bourbon and stared at the table emptily, his gaze barely focused on the clean surface.

"Ro, come on!" Damon called, holding his hand out to the girl as she lifted the skirts of her dress and started to run. He didn't plan on running anywhere, but he would follow her no matter what.

He went after her, a smile on his face as her laughter echoed through the gardens behind her house. "Catch me if you can!" She looked over her shoulder and smiled brightly at him, and Damon felt his heart pound against his chest at the sight of her.

She was ethereal, with wild brown hair that always seemed to do whatever it pleased– yet it was always curled slightly at the ends. Her eyes were aquamarine, not ever just one shade of blue or green. It was always a mossy ocean, filled with life and love.

He would get lost looking at her beautiful features, the slow draw of her smile as her plump lips pulled back in a knowing smirk. The way she always looked happy, even in her darkest times. She was an anchor to the uneasiness of Damon's quickly approaching responsibilities and he wouldn't go on with his future unless she was right there by his side.

He loved her, very much. He knew, even with the war on their minds, it would never change between them. It would always be light, and love.

Damon bitterly blinked back tears and swallowed the rest of his drink, pushing the glass towards the end of the table so someone would see it and refill it. A pale hand wrapped around his glass quickly, and he thought nothing of it until the hand and the body it was attached to sat down in front of him.

Damon looked up and let out a sigh of discontent at the sight of the blonde teenager sitting before him. "Go away, Caroline."

She frowned at his sour tone but shook her head as she got comfortable across from him. "Stefan's worried. He said you were, and I quote, 'drinking your sadness away' but as far as I'm concerned you don't get sad."

He scoffed and looked away from her, the image of Rosemary's smile the forefront thought in his mind. "Everyone gets sad, Blondie. Just take a few Xanax and get over it."

"Damon,"

"Caroline," He mocked, giving a waitress a grateful nod as she sat another drink down before him. He took it and quickly downed it all before she even walked away, signaling for another. "I am trying to drink my sadness away, but the mere sight of your pity is making me want to throw up the gallons of alcohol in my system. Go away."

"No."

Damon rolled his eyes and dropped his head into his hands with a sigh. "What do you want?" His words were muffled by his hands that covered a majority of his face, blacking his vision out.

"I want to know why you're binge-drinking like some gross alcoholic in a sad corner booth, in the back of the bar. It's not a good look for you, you know."

"I don't care." He deadpanned, lifting his head up to glare at her. She raised an eyebrow at his apparent candidness, and he narrowed his eyes when she took the nonexistent invitation to continue talking.

"I thought you liked the attention you got," She sat forward, her tone slightly taunting.

Damon bit the inside of his cheek to stop a remark that would most definitely hurt her feelings. "Despite popular belief, I don't. The few women I care to entertain with my presence should consider themselves lucky– and that includes you."

She gave him that same pitiful look that he hated, the one that Stefan always gave him when he caught him looking at the picture he still had of Rosemary in his room. "You're telling me you don't have feelings for any of the women you sleep with? There is no possible way you have lost touch with humanity to that degree, I refuse to believe it."

"As I said, there's fewer than you'd think." He ignored the last half of her statement because she wouldn't believe him if he told her he was still very human inside.

Truth be told, he still had a lot of his humanity. But the most important part of it, perhaps, had gone with his wife.

The love, the empathy, the concern for others' wellbeing. It all disappeared when he got word of Rosemary's untimely demise. How on earth could he possibly feel bad for the people that took everything that mattered from him?

"That's a deep look. Never thought I'd see the day Damon Salvatore thought twice." Caroline observed, sitting back in her seat as the waitress came with another shot for Damon– this time with the whole bottle.

Damon took them from her and poured the rest of his glass full before he threw it back in one go. He hissed at the bitterness, but he knew that the water pooling in his eyes was not from the alcohol. He began to pour himself another shot, glancing at Caroline who ordered a plate of food.

When the waitress walked off with the new order, he let out a long sigh of defeat. He met Caroline's gaze and searched through her blue eyes for something he had looked for in every woman in his life.

It had yet to come, though. That mossy stare, with the lapping ocean behind it. A rising tide that could destroy everything in its path if it wanted to. No simple look had ever enchanted him as Rosemary's had.

"I miss my wife." He said the words bitterly, glaring at the brown liquid in his cup as Caroline's eyes widened in shock.

"Your what? Your wife?!"

Damon nodded and wiped at his face. He gave the teenage vampire a sardonic smile and shrugged like, what can you do?

"You can't just not explain that, Damon."

He pursed his lips before nodding, biting back a habitual snarky response. "It was back when I was human, in the 1800s." Caroline's eyes widened again, this time with a mixture of curiosity and interest. He hardly spoke of his past, let alone his time as a human and she never knew why. Maybe this was it.

"Stefan and I were expected to marry a nice, wealthy girl from our town and she just happened to be my choice. I met her when I was fourteen, and I knew that I'd marry her in a heartbeat."

Caroline's eyes softened as she saw his hazy blue eyes drift off into a memory she knew pained him to revisit.

"God I– I loved her." Damon stuttered, his drinks catching up to him as he spilled to Caroline. He looked down for a moment, clenching his jaw tight to fight off the tears that always threatened when he thought about her. "She was everything to me. We were young and sickeningly in love, and I would've done anything if she just asked me to. I still would."

"Damon, I had no idea." Caroline shook her head in disbelief. She always pictured Damon as this untouchable, heartless guy, even when she thought about him as a human. She never would have imagined him so... human.

"Course not, Care-bear." He smirked, attempting to shove away the sadness that always came after the anger had dwindled down. "I'm a talented actor."

"Yeah, but," She shrugged, looking at him. "Why do you hide this from everyone? Don't you think people would like you more if you were... I don't know–"

"More human?" He interrupted, raising an eyebrow at her. "Why would I pretend to be someone that died a very long time ago? I'm not a human, Caroline. I haven't been for a long time, all thanks to Katherine."

"Yeah, I guess we both kind of faced her wrath." Caroline frowned, her death a bit of a sore subject for her. "I always thought Katherine turned the both of you so you could stay with her forever. I mean when she, you know, in the hospital–"

"When she killed you?"

Caroline sighed. "Yes. She told me it was about you, you know? She said I was a pawn in her game– all of it had to do with you."

Damon laughed hatefully, ignoring Caroline's glare. "She's always had a thing for me, what can I say?"

"So nothing ever happened between you guys? Just her and Stefan?"

Damon nodded, taking a small sip of his drink. "I was too busy with my wife to notice anything significant about Katherine. She didn't respond well to that, of course. Hence my hundred-year-old revenge scheme against her entire existence."

"So, what did she do to you?"

Damon glared, a snarl pulling his top lip upwards as he focused his hate-filled glare on Caroline. The sight of it made her flinch back a bit, and her eyes widened significantly. "She killed my wife."

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author's note; haha we love that for you damon

edited and published; 8.12.21.

- liz