William’s P.O.V

A werewolf, Damon was a werewolf.

I was about eighty-seven percent sure that I was asleep right now, that being the only reason that I hadn’t let myself freak out the way I had wanted to when Damon’s normal teeth suddenly got freakishly long and pointy.

So if I was asleep, then there was no need to freak out because this was simply a dream… I think.

I wasn’t entirely sure. It couldn’t possibly be real, not when he was claiming to be anything other than human because that was… crazy. Because if Damon really was what he was saying he was then that changed everything.

Not between us, this changed nothing between us as far as I was concerned.

But it changed everything else, changed the entire outside world. It made me wonder who else were werewolves out there, who I’d come across before assuming to be human but turning out to be anything but. It also meant that there may have been other supernatural creatures out there like vampires had to exist as well, right? And who’s to say wizards didn’t too.

Perhaps Harry Potter was based off a true story.

It just couldn’t be real, he couldn’t be serious. Yet my mind was trying to convince me that it all had to be my eyes, my stupid eyes but he hadn’t shown me a hidden camera yet and screamed prank. And Damon wasn’t the type to play around like this, for other things sure, but not in this fashion.

He was a werewolf.

“Who says there’s more to share?” Damon challenges, raising a brow to challenge my previous statement.

“Do I have to start calling you Alexander?” I ask in response making him laugh.

That laughed tamed a little of the panic that was trying to settle its way into my lungs because I knew that laugh, it was familiar. Damon had many different laughs for different occasions, there was the one that came with a snort when I said something he found ridiculous, the little giggle that came whenever I fell over and the roaring laughter that came when something not nearly funny enough to warrant such a response came about.

But I knew this laugh well because it was the little chuckle Damon made when he was comfortable, happy. I knew it because it always made me feel the same, happy and comfortable because I reminded me that I was safe with him.

So werewolf or not, he was still my Damon.

“Okay, you’ve got me,” Damon admits, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m just afraid of how you’re going to react.”

“Can’t be any worse than you being a werewolf can it?” I tease with a small chuckle that quickly fell when I heard my own words. It was starting to feel less like a dream and more like reality the longer this carried on.

Damon offers me a gentle smile that seemed to be more for him than for me. He runs a hair through his tousled hair that was flopping all over today and released a heavy breath.

“I’m not going to dump everything on you today because it would be too overwhelming and I’m also pretty sure you’re in a state of shock,” Damon says making me nod my agreement. “So I’ll tell you the important parts now and you can decide after if you want to know more after, and if you still want to be with me.”

I feel my eyebrows pull together at this, confusion sweeping over me at his words alongside a bit of fear. What could he possibly say that would make me not want to be with him?

“I’ll listen to the end,” I say firmly, repeating the words I’d promised him early and meaning them just as much as I did before. Damon smiles at this, eyes holding mine for a long moment as he studies my face before carrying on.

“For you to understand the rest, I have to explain a few things first.” He starts, watching me closely before continuing. “Werewolves are family creatures, we stick together in something called a pack.” He says glancing up once more to see if I understood. I nod once for him to continue. “Now packs vary base on heritage, previous and present leaders, the practices and the types of wolves that live there.”

“They’re different types?” I question and he nods. “What type are you?”

He laughs, actually laughs.

“We’re getting there.” He promises before carrying on the way he had. “So in a pack, there’s a sort of hierarchy system based on rank. Some ranks can be earned through hard work but the highest ones are what you’re born with, there’s no changing what you are. At the top, there are alphas, they lead the pack. An alpha protects the pack and does what’s in their best interest, the pack listens to their alpha by instinct but also by choice.”

He looks up at me then and I frown, feeling like if I should have something to say. He studies me for a moment longer before revealing what he wanted to say.

“I am an alpha.” He confesses sounding a little sad about it.

It’s my turn to stare now as I watch him, catching the way his body sagged as if ashamed of a title that sounded pretty important to me. I rub his hands a little to bring him back to me, not letting him spiral in whatever negative thoughts took his gaze from mine.

“That sounds nice,” I say, unable to say anything else. I felt like I was underselling it but I could tell, somehow, that if I sounded even a bit more excited about it, it’d completely crush Damon.

The question was, why?

“So you have a ‘pack’ was it?” I ask unsurely but he nods slowly. “You lead them?” He doesn’t nod.

My chest contracts as I watch the light fade from Damon’s eyes, like some part of him was put to rest with just those words. When he tried to pull his hands away, I grip onto them tighter and tug him a little closer to me.

Being close always repelled whatever darkness tried to take either of us, space was our kryptonite, I knew that now.

Damon comes easily but his gaze remains cast down at our hands, the sight of him in such distress tearing me apart from the inside out. Every cell in me screamed for me to bring him into my arms, but he didn’t want to be held now, not with this.

“Did I get something wrong?” I ask desperately, bending my head down to try and catch his line of vision but he doesn’t look at me. “I-I’m sorry Damon.”

Damon shakes his head as if to dismiss my apology, but he doesn’t reply right away. He just keeps staring at our joint hands, watching the way I held his tight in between my own, letting my thumbs rub at his rougher skin to try and smooth his worries.

“We can talk about this another time.” I offer, wanting to banish any mention of whatever was making him so sad. I lift our hands and take the time to press a kiss to each of his knuckles, hoping the administrations would quell his troubled waters.

“It won’t make it any easier to leave it to a later date,” Damon admits, I open my eyes and look up to find him already looking at me with the kindest gaze that completely took my breath away, melting my heart in the way only Damon could.

“Are you sure?” I ask, not wanting to push him to do something that clearly bothered him.

Damon nods and leans over the small distance to press a gentle kiss to my lips. The soft connection sends a ripple of electricity through my veins and my heart soaring within an instant.

“Thank you.” He whispers against me with a small smile.

He pulls back enough to look at me, letting one of his hands escape mine to brush my crazy, bedhead out of my face. I wanted to do the same for him but stop myself knowing I’d probably kiss him if I did and not stop after that.

“I have a pack but I don’t lead them.” Damon clarifies, his eyes holding mine despite the clear agony coursing through them. “Most packs shift to new alphas when the next in line turns eighteen, but the process and age vary for some packs. For mine, the firstborn child gets the role when they turn of age.”

“You just get it? Just like that?” I ask unable to stop my mouth but I didn’t regret saying it when my words made Damon smile widely.

“No, we don’t just get it.” He replies with a helpless chuckle, eyes lightening slightly. “We prepare our whole lives with the knowledge that that is what we’re going to be one day. We train differently from other wolves, learn different materials, spend years attending meetings with parents, training others and more. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into it, it’s not like I wake up and just wing it.”

“What happens if that isn’t what you want to be?” I ask curiously, the question making Damon frown a little.

“Well that doesn’t normally happen, it’s what we’re born to be. It’s literally in our blood to lead and it’s what you naturally want to do.” Damon says as he twists his mouth to the side in thought. “But it’d go to the next in line if someone truly didn’t want the role, that’s what happened with my dad.”

“And you want to be this? To be an.. alpha?” I question, the word sounding strange on my tongue. Damon nods quickly without a moment of hesitation.

I nod in understanding at that. I wasn’t so much intrigued by wolf politics as I was worried to know whether or not this was something Damon wanted and if he could reject it if he didn’t. It calmed a piece of me to know that he had a choice in all this.

“I was supposed to take my position as alpha this year,” Damon continues, voice becoming quieter with each word. “But my parents didn’t think it was time.”

The last words come almost as a whisper through his teeth, his jaws locked tightly together as he squeezed my hands as if angry, yet his eyes were already filling at his own words. I watch helplessly as Damon unravels before me, his mouth rushing to continue before I could respond.

“They didn’t think I was ready yet and so…” He takes in a deep, shuddering breath, pulling his hands from mine to wipe his tears away before they could fall. His face spent with anger and grief as he wiped at his tears furiously. “… I left.”

“Damon,” I call as I wrap my fingers around his wrist, pulling his hands away from his face. “Why not? Why did they think you’re not ready?”

Damon freezes then, looking up at me as if he were a child who’d been caught doing something wrong. I try to keep my face as welcoming and kind as I could, not wanting him to shut himself away from me. I wanted us to be able to trust one another, even if it took a bit of work to get there.

“B-Because I’m too violent.” He whispers so softly I barely heard it. “They s-said I’m too violent.”

“Violent?” I question doubtfully and he nods.

I couldn’t quite imagine Damon doing anything other than laughing in my head, yeah he looked like if he could handle himself and his knife collection definitely backed that theory up, but violence wasn’t something I could easily associate with the Damon I knew.

It was like two pieces that just didn’t fit, at least, not in my mind.

“Are you?” I ask hesitantly. Damon’s eyes glimmer with tears that fall freely. “Are you a v-violent person Damon?”

He nods slowly, his head moving at an aching pace as if it pained him to make the single motion. I sink my teeth into my cheek to stop myself from spiraling into a sea of panic that shot through me at the admission.

The panic didn’t stem from his words so much as the memories that it triggered.

The memories of others who were also violent, violent enough to hurt me in a way that was unforgettable. Leaving a stain in my skin that wasn’t visible to the naked eye but still burned silently beneath the surface.

“Y-You said too violent,” I say trying to tackle this from another angle. Suddenly desperate to not see Damon in any other light than the one that I knew, the one which shone so brightly. “Are… werewolves violent by nature?”

Damon blinks up at me, eyes widening with clear surprise at this response. I continue gnawing at my inner cheek, redirecting all and any of my worries to that spot so that it didn’t show on my face.

“We’re half wolves, our instincts call for us to kill in certain situations.” He replies as if that was obvious. “If challenged, a fight would ensue leaving one either extremely damaged or dead.”

My heart spiked at that, his casual reference to death and fighting casting a worrying shadow over me.

“To an extent, we’re all violent… well, everyone but Peter.” He continues mindlessly.

“Peter?” I ask and Damon smiles instantly.

“He’s my little brother, he’s an omega but he’s more fragile than the usual omega.” He explains quickly, throwing in a new term that went straight over my head. Damon seems to notice then and scrambles to explain. “Omegas are usually the lowest rank as wolves, but we don’t treat them any different in the pack, honest. They usually are weaker than the average wolf, but that’s not always the case. But Peter… he’s weaker than the average omega.”

Damon frowned at his own words as if angered by the truth, his body tensing as his mind worked overtime. I take in the information, noting Peter’s name alongside Levi’s, knowing how important family was to Damon.

My head was basically spinning but I pressed on, wanting to get over the hurdle Damon was clearly hiding behind before I allowed myself to sink back into our previous state of bliss.

“So it’s normal?” I press with a raised brow. “In your kind, amongst your people I mean. Is it normal to do this?”

Damon shakes his head sadly, all the short-lived joy bleeding from him all too quickly.

“I’m worse.” He admits, eyes cast down. “Everyone says I’m worse.”

“You don’t agree?” I ask with a small frown. Damon closes his eyes, the skin there tightening as if he was reliving something he didn’t want to.

“It’s not as simple as they make it out to be.” He states carefully, opening his eyes to look at me. “But I have hurt others.” He mumbles under his breath, a clear attempt to hide his words. “I’ve hurt a lot of others Will.”

“S-So you’ve killed before?” I ask hesitantly, Damon watches me carefully before nodding slowly. “Like a-animals?” I press and he nods. “Other werewolves?” I press once more and he nods after a moment. I nod slowly, trying to take that in as I take a deep breath.

He’d killed before. Taken the lives of others, that wasn’t something I could easily swallow but yet Damon didn’t look nearly as fazed by the admission as I felt. It made a large part of me mad to know he killed animals, being the friend of nature I was, that part made me very mad and was something we would definitely be putting a stop too.

But what really scared me was to think that he’d killed some of his own kind. Granted I knew nothing about that and the rules in their own world, but it had to be like a human killing another human right? Murder? Up until a couple of minutes ago, I thought that was what Damon was.

“A-And you’re not in prison?” I ask mindlessly, my question serious but seeming dumb with the way Damon laughed so loudly Blaze came out to check on him. “What’s so funny about that?”

“No, I’m not in prison, clearly,” Damon replies after a moment. “There is a law system for my kind but I haven’t done anything bad enough to even be considered for that.”

I wanted to ask what kind of law system could approve of killing their own kind and if that wasn’t the worst thing, then what could be?

“H-Have you killed people like me, h-humans?” I manage though shakily.

I could feel the blood drain from my face, my chest pumping itself hard to keep from fainting as fear ripples through me at the look of clear dread paints itself over Damon’s features. My hands slipped from his before I could stop it, body tensing with alarm bells ringing too loudly to tune out.

“I-I can explain,” Damon replies, clearing his throat when it cracked a little, his eyes darting down to our parted hands. “I can explain Will.”

Every bone in my body told me to run but I couldn’t move a muscle, my body frozen in its place as I stared at the blurred image of the man I knew to be everything other than what he was testifying to being.

A killer.

“I’ve never killed someone who didn’t deserve it.” He scrambles desperately, his words only making my skin itch as he talked with such ease about death as if it weren’t something horrible. “All the humans I killed deserved it.”

I open my mouth to reply, wanting to ask him what gave him the right to decide who deserved to die and who deserved to live by hands. But words seemed to be beside me, refusing to part from my lips as Damon pushed himself back to give me some space.

“I’ve only killed hunters and those who tried to hurt my family.” He continues, his body moving slightly as he began to fidget.

I wondered if he could sense the way I was falling into the fear, my heart’s thumps blaring in my own ears.

“H-Hunters are humans who’ve been hunting the supernatural for as long as time tells.” He explains quickly. “They hunt us down and kill us if they don’t torture us first. They have killed thousands for absolutely no other reason than not being human.”

“S-So you kill them?” I ask shakily, my voice barely audible whisper. The taste of death a bitter thing on my tongue.

“If we don’t they’ll kill us, they never hesitate to carry out the job.” He replies sharply, his tone taking on an unfamiliar depth of hatred to it. Darkening the image of him in my mind a fraction as the air around him shifts to something bleak.

I nod slowly at this, taking in his words as I continue to freefall in this new world he was creating. I wanted to ask him for a break, a moment to try and collect my thoughts and make sense of the things he was sharing with me.

But I promised to listen to everything and I would do right by Damon by keeping that promise.

Though it was hard, as things that seemed crazy to me, warped and simply unreal began to lose that effect the more he talked. His explanations making sense somewhere but still not quite calming the parts of me that were completely shackled by fear, panic, and cold-blooded memories.

“Besides them and others who have first laid a hand on one of my family members, I’ve never killed any human being and never a wolf that wasn’t a rogue.” He continues, eyes panicked as they dart around my face.

“Rogues?” I manage this time, trying to ignore the way my muscles tensed and my mouth ran dry as this conversation elongated.

“Rogues aren’t like us, Will,” He explains, his eyes pulling as he continued in a seemingly manic state to explain things to me. “They are crazed wolves who try live without a pack, that m-makes a wolf go mad after some time. T-They’re mindless killers, they will hurt others if they’re not stopped. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

I look at Damon, trying to focus on slowing my breathing but it wasn’t working. I was practically panting now, my ears thumping to the beat of my heart, a low ringing following just below as I try to understand all. But my mind couldn’t quite get past him taking another’s life, that being a single thought I couldn’t help but return to.

“About t-two years ago,” Damon begins, stumbling over his words as he tries to hold my gaze, regret pulling his eyes from mine every few seconds. “I was on patrol for the pack and I found a family of them. They had two younger ones, no more than twelve and a mother.”

“D-Did yo-”

“No.” He says quickly, cutting me off before I could ask. “I didn’t… I-I couldn’t. I hate rogues okay Will, I hate them a lot and I’ve been told all my life to kill them on sight but I… I just couldn’t. They didn’t look so feral, they could still speak so I thought that they may be okay if they had each other. So I let them go, told them to get as far as possible and find more like them.”

Damon’s eyes seemed to darken then before they illuminated into that blue hue that I came to now recognize as something supernatural, not my mistaken eyesight. I watch as his teeth extend and a low snarl came rumbling from his chest.

“I let them go,” He growls lowly, his voice deeper and laced with more pain than I’d ever heard it contain before. “I let them go and found them only months later feasting on one of my pack members. The mother and her two children, so far gone that they couldn’t help but tear at one another if they got to close.”

The sound of my heart quiets slowly as I listen, heart aching and tearing from his words as I try to find the line between what was right and what was wrong in this new world I knew nothing of. An unrecognizable sense of anger sparking at the thought of one of his pack members being hurt like that, an inexplainable spring of anger growing for someone I didn’t even know.

“I had to tell my pack, that one of our own was dead because I let those three live knowing exactly what they were.” Damon continues, his voice dripping with venom and anger. “That woman’s death was on my hands for not being strong enough to do what should’ve been done. So I promised myself to never make that mistake ever again.”

“B-But they must not all be like that, they must have some wh-”

“I’ve never heard of a single rogue that hasn’t suffered the same fate and only know of one who survived it,” Damon interjects coldly. “His name is Jayson and he only came out the other side because he found Levi, but not before killing hundreds of our own and putting my father in a fucking coma.”

I blink at this, taking in his words and the sudden darkness that shadowed Damon’s features. Fear attempts, yet again, to collapse my working systems as I take in the depth of his words. My mind conjuring images of monstrous things and unfaithful events, ones I didn’t want to ever see in my lifetime. But somehow they all cowered in comparison to the display of raw anger and unfiltered rage that was before me.

Damon didn’t look like Damon. There was no kindest in his eyes, no light that made a path for my own troubles, only darkness deeper than any I’d seen before. He looked different than I knew him to be, his features hard and rough as if awaiting a fight, his hands tightening around himself while his blue eyes continued to glow with a hatred stronger than any I’d seen before.

“I need to go.” He manages, pulling himself to his feet and heading for the door with alarming speed.

I pull myself from my own worries, my body finally moving enough to let me slip myself between him and the door before he can open it. I didn’t have to see him clearly to know he was glaring at me, his eyes hard as he looked down at me.

“You need to move right now,” Damon growls, the low baritone of his voice not scaring me nearly as much as it should of.

“Where are you going?” I ask ignoring his instruction, forcing my gaze to hold his.

“I need to get out.” He breathes out, slamming his hand against the wall next to me. I jump slightly, unable to stop myself but hold my ground. “I need to… I can’t control it, Will.”

“Control what?” I ask looking up at him.

I raise a hand to his face, my body relaxing when my vision cleared to reveal my Damon. But he didn’t look as angry as I thought him to be or as scary as he sounded, he looked as if he was in pure agony. His features distorted into something torturous as he looked at me, with eyes that spoke of suffering in a manner that seemed to haunt him.

“Will, I’m not the same without you.” He mumbles, his voice trembling as if terrified. “I-I can’t control it.” He says again before he backs away then, taking the image of him away as he steps into a pace as he dug his nails into his hand.

“Control what?” I ask again.

“Myself.”

I quickly step to him and block his path, caging his face within my grasp before he could pull away. I look up at him, holding him still as the tears built in his beautiful eyes, a dam of emotions threatening to spill over at any moment.

“You can and you will,” I say firmly as I hold him close.

I wasn’t quite certain what he meant or what was taking such a toll on him, but the amount of anger that was radiating off of him told me that he’d something or someone if I didn’t stop him and I couldn’t be with someone like that.

I needed him to be the Damon I knew, the guy who was stronger than anyone I’d ever met before and held a heart too big for his chest.

“Look at me, Damon,” I say firmly, putting some strength behind my words and his eyes quickly shoot up to mine. “Just look at me and breathe, just breathe.”

Damon’s troubled blue eyes stay linked to mine, his tense body refusing to relax as he tried to breathe. But his breathes were labored and his focus dwindling, he tries to pull away but I keep my grip firm as I hold onto him.

“I’m here with you Damon,” I say when he shuts his eyes tightly as if to drown it all out. “I’m right here with you, you don’t have to do this alone… you’re not alone Damon.”

Those words seemed to flick some switch inside of him because he stopped fighting against me, stopped trying to pull away from me, eyes still clamped shut. Instead, he froze, his body stiffening completely before his muscles slowly relaxed and the tension seemed to slip from him.

I took the chance to let go of his face and hug him instead, burying my face into his chest as I wrapped my arms around his large torso. Needing to just feel him close, to bask in his warmth as much as he seemed to need my presence. I breathe him in and let out a shaky breath at his familiar scent, trying desperately to quiet my fears and words of doubt with the parts of him I knew to be so.

We breathed one another in, the simple touch calming both storms raging around us.

Damon hadn’t changed, he was still my Damon. He was still kind and loving, he just was… a little broken, like me. I’d only just seen the fragile warning signs that were wrapped all around him, only visible now as he stood in his most vulnerable state. I just had to handle him with some care, that’s all, give him the support he didn’t seem to have.

He was still Damon.

Damon’s arms slowly rose to hug me back, his touch was light at first as if he was afraid to hold me. I give him a small squeeze of assurance that seemed to give him the push he needs, because, within a heartbeat, he was clinging to me so tightly it took the air from my lungs. I coughed a little but didn’t complain, holding him as securely as I could, wanting him to know that he still had me.

We stayed like that for what felt to be an hour, Damon keeping me pressed to him and me holding him just as tightly. When he finally pulled back, he looked like the man I’d come to know instead of the terrified, sad one I’d caught a glimpse of through all that rage.

“Are you okay?” I ask the worry to clear in my voice to hide. “Do you feel better now?”

“Yeah…” He mumbles quietly, sounding as dazed as he looked.

“Are you sure?” I ask again as I push up onto my toes to bring us closer. “Are you really okay Damon?”

Damon looks at me still seeming shellshocked as his heavy-lidded eyes stay glued to mine, I frown slightly as concern begins to build within me. I look around not sure what to do that would help, Blaze was nowhere to be seen so I couldn’t even try to coax him back to happiness with the fluffy monster.

“You stayed,” Damon whispers softly bringing my gaze back to him. I frown slightly at this. “You were scared just now, don’t say you weren’t because I know that you were,” Damon says, adding the last part when I opened my mouth to protest. I shut it quickly. “You were terrified with what I said and what just happened, but you stayed with me.”

“You needed me,” I say, voicing the truth with a weak smile. “I couldn’t leave you like that, even if I was a little scared.”

“You thought I would hurt you?” He asks sadly and I immediately give him a smack to his head.

“Don’t ask stupid questions.” I scold but he doesn’t have to dignity to even pretend it hurt, he just looked shocked again. “W-With everything that you said, I’m still…. yeah. And yes, I thought that you could hurt me and yeah that freaked me out, still fucking freaks me out if we’re being transparent right now. But I knew that you wouldn’t.”

The staring began again and I had to pull away, needing water to try and tame the headache that was building with all this new information. If this was still a dream, this was the most fucked up one I ever had.

Damon follows behind me, watching me down the glass with rushed gulps while keeping an annoying distance between us. I turn to look at him after downing two glassfuls, eyes narrowing as I look at him.

“Why aren’t you coming any closer?” I ask, an unnecessary level of frustration that I didn’t really understand building at the space.

“Do you understand that I’ve done a lot of bad things, Will? Things that even my own people can’t stand.” Damon says suddenly, his voice becoming harsh again.

“I-I’m trying to,” I promise after a moment. “I’m trying to understand you and all of this.”

“You’re not…” He starts before sighing deeply as he runs a hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t be trying to understand.”

I frown now, not understanding this response.

“Then why would you tell me all of this if you didn’t want me to understand?” I ask slightly annoyed. “Most people don’t just share their worst truths unless they want to be honest unless they’re trying to do better or at the very least, they want to.”

“I do,” Damon says quickly, though a frown as he stares at me as if I were some complicated puzzle. He sighs again, his confused eyes darting around my face before it noticeably hardens. “I’ve slaughtered hundreds and when I get like that like I just did, I-I kill more. I’m not a good person Will.”

“Why are you trying to make me hate you?” I snap angrily, my own fists clenching with rage as I look at him. “Why are you pressing this so hard and trying to make me run when I’m trying to stay?”

“Because I won’t be able to handle it if you leave me later on,” Damon replies sounded tortured with every breath. “I need you to understand what kind of person I am right now, to know all my faults now so you don’t run later on. You need to know it all, so you can leave now if it’s too much for you, because Goddess knows I won’t be able to handle it if something in my past tears you from me. I’m trying to make you understand… so nothing can make you leave me after this.”

Silence blankets the space around us as Damon stares at me, chest rising and falling with quick succession as he tried to keep himself stable.

He was scared. Completely and utterly terrified at this moment as he stood before me, allowing himself to be scrutinized after laying himself bare with his faults open for me to accept or reject.

I watch feeling pity for the first time towards Damon.

Not because he seemed so fragile within this moment but because he seemed so alone. So desperate to keep someone close that he’d risk losing them now rather than later on, so terrified of the future he wanted to rid it of the worst fates.

It broke my heart to see him like this… a delicate thing that just needed someone to handle him with care.

I rest the glass down and make my way to Damon, stopping right before him so I could take his hands into my own. They were rough as always, calloused and tattered but stiff in my hold as he waited anxiously for me to run.

“Damon,” I say studying our joint hands for a moment longer, opposite in almost every way but someone fitting together like two puzzle pieces. I look up at him and smile. “You are my happiness.”

He takes in a quick breath, hands squeezing mine as he looks down at them.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people.” He whispers sadly.

“You are my happiness,” I repeat, not taking my eyes off him so that the moment he’d look back at me he’d find me waiting for him.

“I’ve killed a lot of people.” He corrects and I swallow before replying.

“We will work on that, together.” I manage somehow, repeating to myself that there were things I needed time to understand and more that would take time to accept.

“I can’t control it.” He reminds me.

“You just did and you will keep controlling it,” I replied making a mental note to get him to explain this properly when he wasn’t so wound up.

“I like doing it,” He confesses making me freeze. “It makes the pain go away.”

Minutes pass between us as I work with my mind and body to not release his hands, knowing that if I did it would only solidify his fears. I think of the Damon I’d come to know over the last few months, think about the person he was to me and for me. And finally, I think about the sadness that laid behind the Damon I didn’t quite know, the pure agony that rested behind the anger in his eyes.

I think about that Damon until I’ve circled my way back to him.

“We will work on that too,” I promise, the response making Damon’s eyes shoot up to mine. The clear hope glazing over them worth any future that meant a challenge to come, to make that hope a reality was quickly becoming a goal for me.

“I’m not a good person Will.” He says finally and I can’t help but smile.

“Now that couldn’t be further from the truth,” I reply with complete confidence. “I don’t know who you were before we met or all the things you’ve done, but I know the light that shines through you Damon. You are a wonderful person who literally embodies the word perfection. There’s nothing you can say or throw at me that will change my mind on this. You are a good person, that will never change.”

I did expect the hug that came but not the tears that came with them. Didn’t see the heartwrenching, quiet sobs that raked through Damon as he buried his face into my neck or the way his body trembled as if he’d dropped a shell of armor that he’d always wore.

It was like if something broke inside of Damon or more accurately, something opened inside of him. Something I don’t think he let free for a long time, maybe not ever.

Either way, I was protecting him from anything and anyone who tried to break him down.

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Willliammmmmmmm

Thoughts??

I just lovee them so much and their unconditional love and support for one another!!!!! Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Vote up and comment.

Yes, this schedule sucks, but ya know what, it’s helping me craft a future smut scene soooooo…

I’m doing this thing where I upload by different timezones, so that’s why this may be earlier than midnight.

Also, I start uni next week, I’m so unprepared it honestly should be illegal.

I’m not sick anymore so yay but Japan invaded so boooo…. I’m rambling, aren’t I?

Okay.

Until next time,
Byeeeeeee humansssssss