A/N My first venture into VD territory (not counting my random, slashy VD/GG crossover)

Just a short-ish Damon drabble that's been on my jump drive for months. Set post 1x14

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Asshole. Killer. Homicidal psychopath. You've been called them all. You take lives and honestly; it's not more than fair because your life was taken long before your heart stopped beating in your chest. It was muzzled and taken from you and locked in a tomb, or so you thought - and then you died like you'd planned to all along but you hadn't planned on not living after that.

Every time you sink your fangs through soft, delicate skin there's a ripple somewhere at the back of your mind that shake the walls you've built around the fading memories of feeling. Of shattered hopes and broken dreams and futures slain and the fierce hatred towards anyone who had part in taking it away from you.

Every bite, every velvety drop of blood, is a reminder of life and living and being alive. Your brother would call that echo of memories your humanity if he knew. You call it pointless, painful, overrated and his entire fault.

You've never missed being alive. You've never missed the rise and fall of your chest, or the steady beating of a heart inside your ribcage, because you've known without a doubt that all that wouldn't matter for much longer because you'd get your life back. All you had to do was get inside that tomb and take back what they stole from you; grab your happy ending by the hand and run.

Hopes and dreams and a future instead of eternity.

The fire crackles, shadows moving across the walls. You can't feel the heat from the hearth on your skin, but the dancing flames are all you can see. You're dead, but at the same time you're not. You're in limbo - caught between lack of life and scorching flames and it is wrong.

You were supposed to die, just like you were told Katherine already had. You wanted to; can still remember the crushing, overwhelming grief if you allow your mind to go there, but you rarely unlock the door that exists in the walls you've built.

("She knew where you were, Damon. She didn't care.")

But now there are no walls left to keep you from your memories; they've crumbled and the deafening sound still echoes in your mind, the dust dancing in the air around you.

"How's Damon? Is he going to be okay?"

Elena's voice – so much like hers and still nothing like it - sifts through the air. The question is so absurd it's bordering on comical. You haven't been 'okay' in over a decade, and you've never been further from okay than right now. For the first time in 146 years, you're acutely aware of the silence and stillness inside your chest. You can feel the lack of heartbeat like a black hole; growing and darkening with each passing, non-existent beat. You're being sucked into it; down, down, down into nothingness and not alive and she's not here.

The dreams, the regrets, the guilt. Love and hope and missing the little brother you left to go fight in someone else's war. You can feel it all and the hurt is too much but you welcome the pain - it's yours. Something that no one can take from you, talk you into or choose to run away from.

This time you want to feel it all.

FIN

Thoughts?