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Tweak says, "Ain't nobody got time for that"

Damon Salvatore is complicated. (flipstheswitch) wrote in valarlogs,
@ 2015-06-02 20:51:00

Entry tags:

anatoly sergievsky, damon salvatore

Who: Damon and Anatoly
When: 6/2
Where: A bar
What: Drinking
Rating: Maybe language
Status: In Progress

It was one of those quiet days, and Damon was thinking way too much. First there were the dreams on repeat, and then review for finals with his students, then time spent alone. It was not his kind of day. He should be happy. Elena was home, and so was Stefan, and yet he couldn't seem to lose the same feeling that had been there for months. It was that same piece that never healed. He couldn't forget it and he was no good at shutting it off because that didn't work in the slightest. He had finished his drink at home and decided to take it elsewhere.

There was a bar down the street, dark and quiet. A few pool tables stood in the corner, and several patrons gathered around them. Damon had his place at the bar. "Another," he said to the bartender. It took a minute, but he had another drink in hand. The bartender always seemed impressed with his tolerance, but he never really asked. Damon wasn't sure if it was a benefit or a curse at the moment. He could get drunk, but that amount would be toxic to a human. It was just another reminder of the monster he was - or wasn't. There were a few who would disagree. Dammit.

He looked up to see a man who took the stool next to him. He didn't have a drink yet. "What brings you out on such a fine night?" he asked dryly. Whatever got his mind off of those issues was a good thing, even if the memories would always return.

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haventwonatall
2015-06-07 12:17 am UTC (link)

"Thank you," Anatoly said with a polite nod. He wouldn't say no to that. He didn't drink often, at least no more than a glass or two of wine now and again, the odd glass of vodka. So him being at a bar was a rare thing. Especially considering he wasn't the best at the socializing thing.

However, he was a good listener, even before he'd chosen to become a psychologist. So he listened to Damon, easily understanding the stress and ex could cause. Anatoly had one ex that had cause him stress, and technically she was the one that had ruined things and such.

"And yet she still has feelings for you and you still wish to try?" Anatoly guessed. Otherwise he didn't see why the other man would be here drinking if he didn't have complicated emotions over the matter. He wouldn't have asked the prying question, but the other man seemed more than willing to discuss the issue to some degree anyway.

"Actually, I am," he responded in the affirmative. "The one I dream of is far less exciting than some that I have heard, but it is nonetheless still something that I have come to resent." Did he resent the whole dreaming thing itself? Or simply his specific dreams? Or did he only resent his dream self and the series of bad choices he made? It was difficult to tell, perhaps the truth was a combination of all three. Either way, the experience was not something he enjoyed.

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flipstheswitch
2015-06-07 07:53 pm UTC (link)

"No problem. I can definitely appreciate someone who needs a drink. It helps, most of the time." Damon's tolerance was higher than most. Humans would be twice the legal limit before he caught a buzz, but it was still his poison.

"I love her. I always have." That part seemed so easy, but if that was the entire story, they never would have split up in the first place. "She's in my dreams, a lot like she is now. I've never seen a prettier girl, and that is still true to this day. She and I are together, or were. The dreams can take a lot out of you."

He looked down at the amber liquid. It was the sight he had seen far too often. "Here, she was a student of mine when I started teaching. Her parents died, and then she graduated, and we started seeing each other. I did everything for her, and she needed it. She had a younger brother to take care of and no idea what to do. I was what she needed." That was how they started. Damon took care of Elena in the best way he could, as both a lover and a mentor of sorts. He improved himself for her. He cleaned up his life, tried to be the man she needed, and he was that.

On that side of the coin, they had been a perfect couple, but coins always had two sides. The flip side was never supposed to show, was it? Inevitably, his solution was to glue the coin to the table, sunny-side up, and wait for that other side to grow dormant. Those theories never seemed to work. He did love Elena, but he wanted to be able to flip that coin again, the one that Sam occupied. Thus it was amber liquid, and memories, and a heart that was divided, stubbornly refusing to heal.

"I'm a vampire in the dreams, living in some vampire soap opera." He took another drink. "My brother and I were turned in 1864, and thanks to the dreams, I have been a vampire for over a year." If the man knew of the dreams, then he probably knew of dream gifts, and right now, Damon's filter was low.

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haventwonatall
2015-06-08 09:04 am UTC (link)

"I do not drink often, but after some recent events, I felt it would not hurt to indulge once." Anatoly wasn't going to overdo it, he was well aware of how much alcohol he could drink before it would be too much. Plus it was a weeknight, he had to work and be functional in the morning. So he would only drink enough to loosen up a little bit.

It was certainly a tale he had to tell, one that Anatoly hadn't fully expected, but he also wasn't one to judge. "So you two have known each other for quite a while, then?" He wasn't entirely certainly how old the other man was, but he did wonder whether he taught high school or college. Regardless of which age group was taught, Anatoly did respect that the relationship hadn't started until after the girl had graduated. How many patients had he dealt with that had relationships with their teachers while they'd been their students? It was difficult to count, but not all of those relationships had been well-meaning as this man seemed to be.

"Though it seems that something changed given the current estrangement you both have had." Though even in the face of surmounting odds against it, Anatoly was a dreamer, he did believe that love could conquer all if both parties worked at it. But as with most things, it needed to be mutual otherwise things didn't work. "Have you spoken with her since she came back to town?"

Alright so the vampire aspect was unexpected, though Anatoly didn't give much pause in response. After all, he'd read accounts of people's dreams over that network, knew some dreamt of beings like vampires and such. Though upon hearing the man was a vampire himself in this world, Anatoly looked at him, though without judgement. As long as he didn't try to hurt Anatoly or anyone else, he had no issue with him. "That must not have been an easy change to adjust to. Are you still dreaming of that dream life or have yours stopped?" He was curious, if for nothing else but to try and get an idea of how long dreams could last.

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flipstheswitch
2015-06-13 04:27 am UTC (link)

"We did talk. She came over, and it was good. We are working on things." That was his standard answer. They were working on things. They loved each other, and that had shifted a little, but it was still there. "It will actually be two years in August."

On the surface, they were a couple that no one could separate. He was attentive and devoted, and she loved him, but something had gotten lost on the way. He looked up at the stranger, who seemed like he was a non-judgemental sort. Most people judged him immediately, and then he had stopped talking about it. He had not stopped hurting. "I had a friend and I loved talking to them. Somewhere in those talks, I realized that my friend knew me better than she did. I did all these things for her, to help her, but it was a little one sided, but my friend could talk for hours, and then that started to change too."

"Sam loved me, and told me over and over again. We were fucked. We were way too close for anyones good. We both had these great relationships, and I resisted it for as long as I could. That is not a way to maintain a healthy relationship. I loved Sam. Even after I broke it off, and I broke my own heart, and it's been a year since we have seen each other, I still feel it." He finished the drink and ordered another, and pretty soon, it would numb those feelings.

He looked back to the man, trying to will thoughts of his angel away. It never worked, but he had been pretending for a very long time. "The dreams haven't stopped at all. They just keep going and going. Just when I think we've hit a happy place, something worse happened." He had to laugh at the irony of it all. "Both of those things make me drink. How about you? What brings you out here? After hearing about my dysfunctional love life, you need another drink."

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haventwonatall
2015-06-25 09:03 am UTC (link)

The other man was spot on. Anatoly didn't judge people. He believed in the good in people, that some of them simply needed a chance, someone who would listen and not automatically judge them. And most of the time, Anatoly's belief was correct. It was human nature to not want to be alone, to have someone there to listen when it was needed. Obviously there were exceptions, but compassion and kindness went a long way. And it never was a burden or both to Anatoly to take the time to simply listen to people.

As the other man spoke, the picture became clearer. It was a tale nearly as old as time. Something had been lost in his marriage, or something had simply changed or shifted and something fell into place with Sam. Though breaking it off had been a step in the right direction to fixing his marriage.

"It is never easy to go against your heart, even when you love two people at the same time." Anatoly hadn't had a serious relationship in several years, but he more than understood that relationships took a lot of work and a lot of communication. "It also takes the heart a long time to heal." Which was the downside. Every wound a person took always took time to heal. A broken heart, unfortunately, seemed to take the longest to heal. "Though it is good that you and your wife are working on things. Communication is always the foundation for a healthy relationship." Which really went for any relationship, not just romantic ones.

He nursed his drink, then a slight, humorless smile crossed his face briefly. "A combination of dreams and waking life. And I would not say no to another drink." Anatoly said, tossing back the rest of his drink. "I have a friend here, and I like her as more than a friend. We dream of the same world. We both are Russian in the dreams, having grown up in the post-war Soviet Union. Needless to say, politics have a very prominent place in my dreams." The good old Cold War mentality of East versus West. The dreams tended to make Anatoly's head hurt with the politics.

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flipstheswitch
2015-06-28 09:40 pm UTC (link)

Damon had walls around his heart, right along with another hundred traps and pitfalls ready for anyone who tried to push their way in. Sam had literally walked through each other, into a place that Elena had occupied all alone. Sam had carved his own spot, giving him every single thing he had needed, and he kept the almost-vampire coming back, and it was a misunderstanding that had broken them. If he could go back -- and that was impossible. It was equally impossible to go to wherever Sam was now, and beg forgiveness on his knees, just to hear those words again, 'I know that I love you,' along with 'we were fucked from the moment we met, even before then. Anything at all.

"Elena and I are healing, but I still feel like we are split. I know why. I never got over Sam, but I can't say that. I can't say that I need him around. I can't say a word without being blasted about how absolutely horrible I was, but there was nothing about Sam that was horrible. Everything went so wrong as quickly as it started." Part of the problem really was that they hadn't really had any closure. It ended suddenly, and it was about jealousy, and such raw emotions. There was so much he needed to say still, and he couldn't let go. They made too many promises for it to just amount to nothing. "Sam was not just an extra relationship. It was not a mistake. I just have no idea what to do about it, or how to heal something that refuses to heal. I've tried just letting it fade, but then it comes right back."

He looked over at Anatoly, a little relieved that he wasn't getting the usual look of disgust and disbelief. He had needed that. "I think the dreams and waking life have turned my liver to mold, or whatever they do when they've had too much. Luckily, I don't have to worry about it." He listened to the other man talk of his. They seemed to be bast in reality, unlike his. The supernatural world wasn't particularly real, at least the way the dreams went. "I do love history, but I don't know if I could do the politics of the whole time. Are you involved with politics in them, or just someone affected by the decisions and direction?" He waved his hand at the bartender to bring more drinks around, instructing him to leave the bottle.

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haventwonatall
2015-06-29 07:06 am UTC (link)

There were times Anatoly wished he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve, that he was better at protecting himself. But he was quite the bleeding heart that simply had to help people. Anatoly was a dreamer, the type of person who was more optimistic about life despite the line of work he was in. But it also probably kept him relatively sane and grounded that he had such an outlook on life.

As it was, Anatoly was trying not to go full on psychologist here, but he could certainly where Damon may indeed need some counseling. There was some obvious depression there, given the separation from Sam and how that relationship went. Still, Anatoly didn't judge him. It would get him no where to sit there and judge. Especially when his dream self was an asshole who cheated on his wife.

"That is the thing about emotions, when they are true, it is more than difficult to let go of them when there wasn't any closure." Anatoly was going to simply hazard a guess that there hadn't been closure with Sam. "Ideally talking with Sam would help that, but when that is not an option, talking about it with an uninvolved party may help. At least in that respect, you would be able to say the things that you otherwise cannot say to anyone else." And, well, Anatoly was more than willing to hear Damon out. He already was, but he wouldn't mind if Damon talked to him in depth. At least it would be a place to start.

Anatoly gave a short, soft, humorless chuckle at the question. "I am not a politician in the dreams. I had actually been studying to become a medical doctor when I met the woman I eventually married in the dreams. She taught me how to play chess, and eventually I was approached by a man named Molokov. He was KGB and wanted me to play chess on the global scene. I did and let myself be blinded by pride in the process of rising to become the champion for the USSR. At the world championships, I was set to play the American champion. The entirety of the tournament was political in nature given it was East versus West. I hated the politics, but there was little I could really do to keep it out of my mind." Especially with Molokov breathing down his neck and going on about how he needed to win to prove a point to the West. Or something equally as stupid.

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