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❝i won't change who i am, i can't❞
"WHY IS HE LIKE THAT?"
The words follow Damon down the hallway as he storms off again, a bottle of bourbon in one hand and a mostly empty glass in another. Stefan watches his brother go with a stare of pity, the very one that Damon resents nowadays.
He sighs at Elena's question. They'd been sitting in the living room quietly when Damon had stumbled into the room and made a fuss of their relationship. Bringing up Katherine, and stupid things as such.
Stefan was used to it. Elena, not so much.
"He's not like this all the time." And he's really not. Stefan knows better. Damon is a good person, even when he denies it with his entire being.
Elena rolled her eyes but understood the defensiveness Stefan had when it came to Damon. She was the same way with Jeremy, albeit a little less patient than Stefan. But, then again, she wasn't dealing with a nearly 200-year-old vampire that constantly seemed to be throwing a temper tantrum.
"I just don't get why you let him talk about us like that." She knew her relationship with Stefan was stable, but constantly having someone demeaning it because you've got an evil look-alike out in the world somewhere had started to cast a shadow on her confidence.
"You don't understand, Elena."
The girl sighed out in frustration. "Then make me understand! What could possibly be so terrible about his life that he's got to act like such an ass?"
Stefan hesitated, wiping a hand over his mouth and shutting his eyes tight. He peeked down the hallway Damon had disappeared, knowing full well that wherever his brother was lurking about he would be listening. But Stefan knew that Damon trusted Elena, to an extent. If he had a problem with her knowing, he would've made her stop asking questions two minutes ago.
"Damon was–" Stefan corrected himself hastily as he spoke. "Is married."
Elena felt her jaw go slack, and she opened her mouth to ask the sudden spew of questions she had, but Stefan held up a hand and stopped her.
"A long time ago, when we were human, it was expected of Damon and me to be married off to some wealthy girl and continue on the Salvatore bloodline. Most times, it was to a complete stranger. But Damon was lucky. We'd grown up with her– she was my best friend. Damon always had a crush on her, even when he didn't really understand what it was that he felt."
Elena held Stefan's hand in her own, squeezing it in silent comfort. She could hear the shakiness in his voice as he spoke of this mystery woman, Damon's wife.
"When Katherine came to town, she had her sights set on Damon. But Damon barely paid her any mind. It infuriated her, even when she came after me. She wanted nothing to do with just one of us, she wanted both of us. She wanted to destroy us." He sighed, the memories vivid in his mind even after so many years. "She told our father that his wife was a vampire, and he sent the entire town after her. They finished off what Katherine had already done, thinking that she had been attacked by a human. Our father only told Damon after it had been done. And the next morning, Katherine turned me and ran off."
Elena's breath hitched. Knowing Katherine would do such a thing made the woman somehow scarier. "What happened after that?"
"My father died. I fed on him and completed my transition, and then I found Damon. When I told him what I did, he offered to help me, and I ended up turning him. Shortly after that, we ran for survival. But he still came back here every year to visit the headstone he had made for her, I know that."
Elena shook her head. "Well, what about Damon? If she was killed, what happened to their marriage? Was it just null and void because she died?"
"Divorce was frowned upon back then, and because we fled so quickly, most people assumed that we'd done it out of grief. It took a few generations for us to really be able to come back to Mystic Falls because the Council was still hunting me for killing my father, so we just never came back– until last year."
Elena nodded, taking in the shocking information. "I've never seen Damon wear any ring besides his daylight ring." She furrowed her eyebrows watching the pain flicker through Stefan's eyes.
"The night that they killed her, Damon had given her his ring because she was getting it cleaned. But then Katherine turned us, and," He scoffed, the sound bitter. "Everybody died, or ran."
"I'm so sorry, Stefan. You lost someone, too. She clearly meant a lot to both of you." She tightened her hold on his hand but felt pity for the raven-haired vampire that was somewhere about the Boarding House. "What was her name?"
"Rosemary Montgomery."
Heavy footsteps came down the hallway, and the two on the couch startled at the loud sound. Damon had a scowl etched on his features as he shrugged a coat on and stormed towards the door. "I'm going to the bar."
The door slammed hard behind him, rattling the glasses at the mini bar, and the couple shared a look, knowing full well that he'd been listening the whole time.
Letting out a worried sigh, Stefan looked at the door after his brother's brisk departure. He gave Elena an apologetic look that she shrugged off.
Perhaps if Stefan had known what his brother was planning, he wouldn't have felt so bad for him.
