prodigalsavior | The first day of the rest of your life (For Elena and Ric)

Damon was torn on whether any of them should be going to the stupid Founder's Party. There were far too many of them and, honestly, nothing good came of them. But Elena did need to get out, to get on with life or whatever. Damon wasn't sure what that would look like, but he felt like he needed to help her figure that out.

Maybe part of it was the thrill of deciding something--anything--with Ric, even if they hadn't told anyone, hadn't discussed when to tell anyone, or how or...whatever. It didn't matter right now. Elena was hurting and, if he was honest, so was he. Whatever else...Stefan was his brother and he loved him and watching all he'd accomplished fall apart again hurt. No Lexi to pull him back this time, either. She was the only one who ever had, but thanks to him, she wouldn't be fixing things this time.

It seemed like Stefan didn't want to be fixed.

Damon would be damned--more damned?--if he let his brother take Elena down with him.

Which was why he was letting himself into her house and putting coffee on, and starting to bang pots around to figure out what they should make to go to the party.

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Damon frowned a little, uncertainty hitting again. "I just meant..." He shook his head. "We can go whenever you want, wherever you're comfortable."

"No." He stopped, and took a breath. "Tell me what you did mean. I think I'm spinning mental wheels, here...." And not getting anywhere. Too rattled by Elena and declarations and trying to not make Damon feel like a dirty secret and protect him and his own discomfort and. Yeah, he wasn't getting anywhere. "Please, help me out."

Damon lifted his hands and let them fall, helplessly. "I don't know...You say you want to go somewhere, you ask me where I want to go, but every place I suggest...you find something wrong with it. When I ask you where you want to go, you won't suggest somewhere. So...I don't know what you want me to say, or us to do..."

"Okay...." He tried to get his brain in gear. "There wasn't anything wrong with the places you mentioned. I was originally trying to find somewhere you hadn't been. That's all that was wrong with them. Then I thought I was doing something wrong and you didn't actually want to go, or you thought I was trying to hide you, or were ticked off about me wanting to get away somewhere, to try to force this thing through. Or shooting the idea down, yourself, when you mentioned being called back. So, let's start over?"

"I don't really have anywhere I haven't been, after all these years. At least not anywhere we can go until next summer--or Christmas, at least-- unless you want to quit your job." Damon took a breath. "Okay--let's start over."

Ric exhaled with more relief than he probably should have felt, when Damon agreed to at least starting over. "I'd like to get away for a few days with you. How do you feel about Richmond?"

Damon smiled a little. "I like Richmond. There are ghost tours with people in costumes, I've heard. Not that I've ever done them." He really hadn't.

"What kind of costumes? Not that it's a make or break point...." It wasn't, but it sounded fun, and interesting, if he let himself unwind enough from being pulled in conflicting directions to admit it.

"Gone With The Wind meets Night of the Living Dead," Damon summarized, not sure how else to describe them.

"...I shouldn't find imagining you in that sort of outfit hot, should I?" There was something wrong with him, Ric was pretty sure.

Damon gave him a skeptical look. "Period costume or zombie period?"

"...Period in makeup," he admitted, looking every bit as pained as he felt.

Damon arched an eyebrow at him a little, smiling a bit. "Well, Halloween's not too far away..."

Ric rubbed a hand over his face and kept the pained expression but added a smile. "I'm afraid of indulging... whatever this is. Might be like feeding a germlin after midnight. Or was it getting them wet?"

"I...don't remember. I think getting them wet made them multiply and feeding them turned them all demonic?" Damon tried to remember, then shrugged. "How is this related?"

"I'm afraid I might turn into a monster, if I'm indulged too often?"

"By costume drama?" Damon asked with an arched eyebrow.

Ric rubbed the back of his neck and looked up at Damon. "More the idea that the thought of you in costume really, really turned me on."

Damon smirked a little. "Really....I have no problem with anything turning you on that much..."

"I'm not opposed to being turned on by you, either... I'm a little concerned that that did it for me." Concerned, confused. They aren't really all that different, at the moment. "Especially right now."

"Well, that is a little odd," Damon said, giving him a bit of a smirk. "But, hey. History teacher and vampire hunter? It was bound to happen."

Ric blinked a couple of times, and then laughed softly - and briefly. "You're right. I guess it's not that weird that a history teacher would have a thing for history."

"If you don't, you're so very much in the wrong field," Damon said, more amused.

"Given that I never really meant to teach...." But his love of history had always been there. "I think I've got a plan. For... things here."

Damon's eyebrows went up. "...You do?"

He was wary again, but a plan was better than no plan--it sounded like some sort of forward motion.

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