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

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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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And Elena had no idea why.

It was crawling over her skin, making her feel more than uncomfortable, as she worked at chopping the celery. It was enough to make her want to find out what was going on but there was a bigger part that just wanted to leave.

Finishing the celery, she glanced at Damon. "Where do you want this?"

Damon was doing his best to pretend there wasn't any tension in the room, and to still the little flare of guilt because he knew that Ric had misinterpreted, but he couldn't say that now, and he was confused by what was going on with Elena, what he was reading off of her.

He bit back a sigh and gave Elena a smile.

"In the crockpot."

Ric had no idea what was going on with Elena, either, but she was in good company in just wanting to leave. This couldn't have gotten any more awkward, and Ric was not helping a thing. He couldn't even justify saying anything, because it wasn't her fault and she didn't know and - well, he thought he and Damon had covered this, but apparently he was wrong, or something. They sure as hell hadn't covered 'tell Elena'.

Yeah, awkward. Mostly, he just worked on chopping the chicken and kept his mouth shut.

Elena knew she was being odd too but she figured everyone would just write it off as being the result of what had happened in Chicago. With Stefan. No one else.

Dumping the celery into the crockpot, she glanced over at Ric hesitantly. It was strange to feel like he was mad with her or something.

"Um, Ric? Tomorrow is prank night?" She tried to act normal. "Caroline wants me to go, so I'll probably be...late."

Damon was walking on the edge of a wire with the awkward and, well. Walking on the edge was never something he does well. Nor was keeping his mouth shut. The tenser things got, the more likely he was to blurt out something to break it.

Which was pretty much what came out of his mouth. "Great. You all will have fun and do high schooly things, and Ric and I will find some way to amuse ourselves. Shouldn't be too hard."

Ric wasn't even remotely upset with Elena, but he did have the wherewithall, if only just, to realize she probably thoughs so. He'd made an effort to get a real smile on his face, when Damon opened his mouth and-

Ric turned him around and fixed him with the singularly most pissy expression, ever. "You're right," he drawled. "There probably won't be anything hard."

He got over that one, after a second, and looked back to Elena. "Have fun. Maybe some time out with Caroline will help."

It was such a weird statement and Elena couldn't help but give Ric a quizzical look about it.

"Maybe." She replied before glancing between them with an inscrutable expression. "Do you need me anymore?"

Given the simmering tension in the room, Damon didn't want to over think her question, or any sort of implications in it that might or might not be there the way Ric was acting.

"Yes." The answer to her was just automatic.

He was the one shooting Ric a pissy look, now, with a layer of hurt underneath it. "Whatever you think you walked in on, you didn't."

Ric looked back at Damon for a moment and nodded. "All right... Elena, this isn't about you. You're fine. If you want to stay, you're welcome. If you don't... I get the need for space." He finished his chicken. "Where's this go?"

Elena glanced at Damon as he said 'yes' and then she was looking at Ric again. "What is going on with you two?" She demanded then.

Damon was still half glaring, though, really, eventually he might come around to being happy Ric cared enough to get pissy. That was new.

It made it that much harder to know how to deal with, though.

"Do you want to tell her, or should I?"

He wasn't going to even try to pretend nothing was.

Ric shot Elena a concerned look, and then back at Damon. "You can, if you want and think it's a good idea."

He wasn't going to hide Elena, but he was... way less than sure about this. On a lot of levels. For him. For Elena.

Slapping her hand against the counter, she continued to look between the two of them, torn between concern and annoyance.

"Tell me what?"

Well, he couldn't really not tell her, now, and that occurred to him with a slight "oops?" feeling. Because if he said nothing, then she'd get pissed, and he was trying to help her, not piss her off.

But Ric's lack of surety left him feeling uncertain, now, too, like maybe they weren't really together, no matter what they'd said.

Add to that...he had no idea how to describe what they were doing. Dating? Hooking up? Exploring new levels of their friendship? None of that was right, and he'd be damned--more damned--if he knew what was.

"Ric and I..." He trailed off, closed his eyes, took a breath. "We've been...I mean, we decided..." Well, what had they decided beyond some possessive snarling and that they weren't just friends with benefits or whatever? "We weren't really going to tell anyone, yet, so if you could...not, that'd be cool..." Faint panic was showing and it was ridiculous--he was older than both of them combined, so he shouldn't feel like a teenager with his first crush, for fuck's sake.

"We're sort of...together?" He thought? Maybe? He looked at Ric a little helplessly.

"Remove the sort of," he said, giving Damon a totally exasperated look. "Tell anyone you need to tell. Not broadcasting it to everyone would be nice, though." Because he fully expected everyone in the town to come down on Damon like a ton of bricks, and to question his own sanity.

He was still damned worried about Elena, though, his heart was racing and he was light headed - though the last had more to do with 'out' about... anything involved in that. He was covering it fairly well, at least from Elena, he hoped. Damon... he couldn't even try. Too much of it was pure physical response.

At first, it didn't even compute.

Even as Ric clarified what Damon was trying to say, she stared at them blankly as the words echoed through her head. Soon Ric wasn't the only one who felt light headed as Elena felt like she had been punched in the stomach as it started to sink in.

Together. They were...together.

She opened her mouth and then closed it before making a weird noise like a laugh and a huff as she took a step back, lifting a hand and then dropping it.

Then, irrationally, she was mad and that came from a spark of jealousy that she didn't want to admit. It was the same reaction she had to anyone Damon fooled around with even if she knew it wasn't fair. But it was more than that. It was the two of them...together. And her world, already sideways, felt like it was completely upside down.

"How....how long?"

Ric's clarifying helped a little, made him feel more steady, like Ric wasn't just going to call it off because Damon had upset him. Elena's reaction...well. It took him by surprise, honestly, and he frowned a little.

The physical reactions both of them were having were clear as day to his senses, and he didn't know how to interpret or deal with either of them.

He knew Elena tended to get pissy when he was with someone, but...she also kept telling him it was Stefan, always going to be Stefan, not him. That still cut, still hurt, and it wasn't like his changing feelings for Ric had obliterated what he felt for her. But he'd made a choice, chosen the person who wanted him, for him, and he wasn't going to feel guilty about that.

Even if part of him did.

"Since we were in South Carolina." So, a few weeks, a month or two, maybe, really, more or less.*

[OOC: *because season 3 timeline is severely fucked up given Elena's b-day is supposed to be June 22, but just days later school's started and it's prank night, and wtf is that nonsense? Clearly weeks got missed somewhere. Or Elena's b-day changed, randomly.]

Ric shook his head, slightly. "South Carolina was the start of it, but officially at all? Chicago." He wasn't going to lie or hold anything back, he wasn't mitigating, but if she was asking questions and they'd gone this far, he was damn well answering them.

"Oh god." She looked away from them, closing her eyes as she pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment. She would have never suspected it. Not till today and Ric had started acting...oh god, he was acting jealous.

"I just....Jenna?" She looked at them. Jenna had only been dead for weeks. "Did this start before?"

"No!" Damon looked outright offended at that. "South Carolina was after your birthday. After Stefan killed Andie." Which no one ever seemed to remember. Fine, she might have been his fake girlfriend, but he'd cared about her, and he certainly hadn't cheated on her. And Ric certainly hadn't on Jenna.

Yeah, fast, but months, by his count.

"I don't think either of us expected it to be anything more than..." He shrugged. "Mutual comfort after a shitty few months. That wasn't really any of anybody's business."

But if they were...together...and it came in to their reactions to each other and people around them, then, yeah. It sort of put itself out there.

Ric looked more like he'd just been punched in the stomach than offended. He walked away from the chicken to wash his knife in the sink. Damon'd given Elena the answer and Ric just... couldn't. He had enough guilt and conflicted feelings even with the time frame there had been about Jenna, and turning Elena's life upside down. Trying to talk right now wasn't going to work. He didn't trust his voice and he really couldn't breathe, anyway.

Elena felt guilty for even mention Jenna but she felt blind sided, unable to really connect the dots or put it together in her head. Later, when she was calmer, it would be easier to deal with but right now....

"I...I can't do this right now." Too many things were racing through her head and she had no idea how to put them all into words.

All she knew was now she felt like she had lost them too. She couldn't talk to Damon, obviously Ric didn't trust them enough for that and now....well, they had been hiding things from her. Later, when she was calmer, she would get why since she was hiding what had happened with Elijah but that had only been a one time thing. Not something that had been going on for awhile.

Setting her own knife aside, she started for the stairs.

Seeing Ric's hurt, Damon wanted to snap something at her, protective instincts transferring at the sight of the rigidity of Ric's back. But he bit it back, because all of this had started because he was trying to cheer her up, help her not dwell on the guy she'd always chosen over him.

A few months ago, he probably would have chased after her, but he refused to feel guilty--not about whatever this was with Ric, not about keeping it to themselves while they tried to sort it out. Instead, he moved to Ric, a touch on his back, tentative, at first, before he slid his arms around him and just held him.

He seriously did not care if the whole of Mystic Falls--or just Jeremy--walked in right now. "I'm sorry."

Yeah, mark that one down as a red-letter moment. The words even felt weird on his lips.

Ric sagged a bit when Damon wrapped his arms around him, turned between Damon and the counter and rested his forehead against Damon's temple. He kept his eyes closed, though. "Not your fault." His voice came out more strained than he liked, and he cleared his throat. "I started it."

By being jealous and insecure, or maybe just possessive and uncertain. Either way - he had started the whole thing. "But thank you."

The thanks was for the actual apology. He knew that wasn't easy for Damon.

Elena wouldn't expect Damon to chase her and she certainly wasn't looking for him to. She just needed air, a moment to think, but she stopped at the entrance to the kitchen before glancing back as she watched Damon move to Ric to slide his arms around him.

It was an odd sight to her because she hadn't expected it. Hadn't known that either one of them had swung that way which was probably why she brought up Jenna more than anything.

Closing her eyes, she opened her mouth and then shut it. Finally, she sighed. "I won't tell anyone." She couldn't quite look at them. "And all I want is you to be happy..."

"But I'm going to go stay with Caroline tonight." She left them alone then, disappearing upstairs.

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