DAMON SALVATORE & CASSANDRA PENTAGHAST High (Violence, blood, talk of death) | Complete
Damon lie gazing up through the tall, longleaf pines at the stars overhead, the cold asphalt of the road hard beneath his back. He’d lain in this particular spot once before, the night he’d first met Elena. She’d wandered away from a party, worked up over a fight she’d had with the quarterback, and stumbled right into his path. At first it had been her resemblance to Katherine that had drawn his attention but it had been Elena who had enchanted him and held him captive for the last three years. The love he felt for her eclipsed the feelings he’d once had for Katherine tenfold. The summer they’d spend together before she’d started college had been the happiest time of his life. When he’d died and been stuck in the 1994 prison world, the thought of getting back to that, back to her, had given him hope, given him the motivation to carry on. Even when he came back to find her memories of him compelled away, there had been hope that she could get them back. This, though… Stefan’s voice kept echoing around in his head. ‘Elena made her choice.’ This wasn’t a mistake or a plan that had gone horribly wrong, Elena had chosen Stefan. The worst part of it was that it didn’t come as a surprise to him. Stefan and Elena were both human now; it made complete sense to him that she would find her way back to him and that he would be ready and waiting to give her the life she’d always dreamed of.
The only problem was that Damon couldn’t remember Elena and Stefan being human before today. In fact, there was a lot he didn’t seem to remember. Judging by how old the pair of Salvatore spawn had appeared, he was missing at least the last five or six years of his life. On top of that, there was Atlantis. It all seemed like a dream to him now: the kind of dream that made you want to fall back asleep and recapture it before it drifted too far away. Could any of that possibly have been real? It had seemed real. The problem was, if it was real, it meant that the concept of alternate universes was real too and that made the the fact that he seemed to have stepped into the life of another version of him seem all the more plausible. And where did that leave him? Stuck in his own personal hell, keeping an eye out for mysterious coins? He’d lived for a hundred and seventy three years in his own world before Stefan’s wish had taken him to Atlantis. Who knew how long he would have to endure this world before an opportunity to get back presented itself.
The glare of approaching headlights roused Damon from his thoughts. He stayed where he was in the middle of the road, listening to the rumble of the car’s engine approach then fall into a gentle purr as it stopped a few meters away.
“Oh my gosh, are you alright?” came the sweet but worried tones of a female voice with a pronounced Old Dominion accent. Damon took a deep breath before turning his head to look up at the approaching woman. She was pretty - blonde and young, probably barely in her twenties. He didn’t recognise her from Mystic Falls but, in this world, that was hardly a surprise.
“No,” Damon replied, pouting his lips as he looked up at her, squinting against the dazzle of the headlights. “I’m having a bad day.”
The girl pulled out a cellphone, saying, “I’ll call 911,” but before she had time to even dial the first number, Damon was on his feet and standing in front of her. She jumped, visibly, her eyes widening in fear as she started to back away but Damon’s gaze was fixed on her eyes and, before she had chance to run, he had compelled her to stay put.
“Do you want to know why I’m having a bad day?” he drawled, taking the phone out of her hand and tossing it over his shoulder, listening to it clatter away across the road.
“W-why?” the girl stuttered, a fat tear rolling down her cheek.
“I’m glad you asked,” Damon said, his voice dripping irony. He settled himself against the hood of the girl’s car, which was still idling contentedly, unaware of the precarious situation its owner found herself in.
“First, I was ripped out of a world where I was blissfully happy. Then I learned that the love of my life has left me for my little brother.” Damon could feel all the anger and frustration and betrayal bubbling up inside him as he spoke. “Do you want to know what the worst part is?”
The girl nodded shakily, clearly hoping that, if she played along, this mad man would let her go.
“The worst part is that I can’t do anything about it. Stefan is Elena’s choice,” Damon snarled, making quotes in the air with his fingers as he spoke the last two words. “Elena’s choice so if I do anything to try to win her back, I’m immediately the bad guy.”
The realisation of what he’d just said hit him suddenly. He was the bad guy again. It had been so long since he’d been the bad guy that he’d forgotten what it felt like, how soul destroying it had been to be in love with a girl who didn’t even like him, let alone want to be with him. For the first time in a long, long time, he felt truly alone.
Damon’s gaze fell back on the girl, whose tears were making watercolour mascara tracks down her cheeks. With all the black emotions swirling around inside him, there was no room for sympathy though. All the darkness - the loneliness, the hurt, the helplessness - converged into one single impulse.
“So here I am,” he said, his voice ringing with a hard coldness that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. “Being the bad guy.”
A scream reverberated through the forest, bouncing off of the tall tree trunks, as Damon’s fangs sank into the soft, pale skin of his victim’s neck. The blonde struggled hard against him before falling limp in his arms. Damon gave himself to the bloodlust and drank on in silence and, for those few moments, he was able to block everything else in the world out. It was just him and this girl and the blood passing between them. He only paused when he heard her heartbeat slow and start to falter. After a moment’s indecision, he lifted his head, blood streaming down his chin.
What had made him stop? He had fully intended to kill this girl. He had wanted to kill her. He’d wanted to numb the pain by flipping the switch and turning off his humanity. So why was she still breathing? One thought flickered through his mind. If Atlantis had been real, there was a chance he could get back there one day and, if he did and Elena learned that he’d murdered an innocent here, now, tonight, he wasn’t sure she’d be able to look past it to remember the good.
Rolling his eyes at the realisation of how much he’d changed in just a few short years, Damon lifted his arm and bit into his wrist before holding the hot flow of blood to the girl’s mouth. She stirred and tried to pull away but Damon held her firm until he was sure she’d swallowed some, then he hoisted her up onto his shoulder and carried her back to the open door of her car before dumping her unceremoniously inside. He crouched down, lifting the girl’s chin until she was face to face with him, her eyes bleary and unfocused.
“Forget we ever met,” he compelled her, a frown written across his forehead. “You had a nosebleed so you pulled over until it stopped.” The girl nodded heavily.
Damon released her chin and let her slump back in her seat before closing the door behind her. He sighed then turned back in the direction of Mystic Falls. The fact that he hadn’t killed the girl proved to him that he still had hope and, while he had hope, he was damned well going to find a way to get back to Elena, either in this world or another.
Cassandra had been wandering this town that she had no memory of, that had no beginning or end… or sense. She had tried to scream, plead, beg, hit things and nothing had worked. The town itself seemed to turn her around on her path and become entire darkness until she was back near the house again, the happy family inside.
She finally wandered back down a road that seemed to lead out of town only to find the man from before walking in the opposite direction. Cassandra approached him, walking slowly. Her footsteps made no sound. Was this what a spirit felt like, trapped in the wrong side of the world?
“I’d try again but you probably can’t hear me still. Or you don’t want to and I cannot force you. I cannot do anything.”
Damon stopped dead in his tracks and frowned, looking around him for the source of the voice. The trees to either side were swathed in darkness and he had left behind the glow of the girl’s stationary headlamps. As far as he could see, he was alone on the road. Great. Now he was hearing things. That was just what he needed today.
“Who’s there?” he called, sounding defiant and slightly irritated.
“My name is Cassandra, we have nothing in common but Atlantis. I don’t rightly know what is going on but we are trapped in some sort of dual nightmare, yours and mine, where you are embroiled in family drama and I am incorporeal, inaudible, rendered… helpless.” She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and continued, though the words could hardly come out of her mouth. “I seem to be dependant… on… you.”
There was that word. Atlantis. Damon felt an inexplicable rush of joy at hearing it out loud, even if it was coming from a disembodied voice. It gave credence to his theory that he hadn’t just dreamed it up.
He turned his head slightly, in the direction of the voice, as it carried on explaining the situation. A nightmare. That made sense. This was like a nightmare.
“If you’re right and this is a nightmare,” Damon reasoned, narrowing his eyes. “Why aren’t we waking up?”
He wasn’t denying this was all some elaborate farce, and that was good enough news for now. Though the if did make Cassandra’s nostrils flare. “I am right. But I don’t know. I can hardly understand the realm of dreams of where I am from, even as it is part of my calling to do so, but you expect me to understand how the one in Atlantis works? Half of what happens in waking Atlantis doesn’t make sense to me!”
Were this the Fade, well. This felt all too real to be a mere dream, and hers normally did not feature dark towns or strange tall men. Were this the Fade it would be the raw Fade like last time, and it would be greener, for one, less rooted in reality and a lot more eerie. Things would feel a lot wronger, and there would be little demons, bigger demons. Cassandra suddenly turned to Damon. “Why are you covered in blood?”
Damon’s mouth twitched into a smirk and he lifted a finger to his chin, wiping a clean, white line in the blood that was beginning to congeal there.
“I fancied a midnight snack,” he replied, shrugging it off. He wasn’t about to let a disembodied voice make him feel guilty. He’d left the girl alive, hadn’t he?
Cassandra’s features twisted in disgust. If she had her weapons… well. If she had her proper body, first and foremost. This was not the first time Cassandra saw herself forced to work with people who disgusted her, after all.
“You find yourself trapped somewhere not your home, and all rules go out the window, is it?” She sneered. “Well. Right now we need to break out of whatever this is. I wish to spend no more time than necessary here or with you. This place appears to be familiar to you. Ideas?”
Damon rolled his eyes. Trust his luck to be stuck with such a judgy Jiminy Cricket. Maybe this was a nightmare, after all. Still, it wasn’t the worst thing anyone had ever said to him and Damon was a big boy - he could take it. The fact that this Cassandra was talking sense helped.
“Why don’t you throw yourself off of Wickery Bridge?” he suggested glibly. “Don’t they say you always wake up before you hit the ground? Maybe it’s the same with water.”
Someone else would have gotten slightly pissed off at the attitude. Cassandra Pentaghast was ready to blow a gasket and beat this little man within an inch of his life and much less of his dignity.
“Or perhaps I could throw you.” She threatened even though she had already told him she was incorporeal. “You of course may choose to wallow in the despair of a scenario where your beloved chose another. Seems fun.”
Damon pulled a face.
“How are you going to do that, Ghosty?” he asked, calling her out on her empty threat.
Her next sentence touched a nerve, however, and Damon scowled, speeding up his pace a little, half hoping that she would leave him alone. He’d find a way out of this on his own if he had to.
“I’ve fought demons, dragons, evils long thought dead you think I can’t find a way to upend you off a bridge? Please.” Cassandra bluffed. Ordinarily it would have bothered her that her insensitivity had touched a nerve, but in this case she couldn’t care less. “Where are we going now, back to creep on your beloved with the other man she chose in this terrible nightmare reality? You expect them or their children never to see your head through the window?”
Damon carried on walking, trying his best to block the voice out. He couldn’t, of course.
“I don’t know about you but I’m going to get a drink,” he told her. He just hoped that the Salvatore Boarding House hadn’t been exorcised of its stash of aged bourbon. That really would make him believe this was a nightmare.
“A drink?” Cassandra chuckled ruefully. “So you are just fine with being trapped in this horrible nightmare then.”
Hopeless. She felt hopeless, and tired, and strange, and she wanted to go home. Sure, Varric had been worth it but right now Cassandra even though for a second that she should never have stayed. Not if the only thing worth all the messes was Varric and he wasn’t even here. “But I wonder, why should I have to stay here because you wish to wallow in self-pity? Have you not an ounce of thought for others?”