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DAMON SALVATORE

Miss Mystic Falls pageants had always been a time for shitty, old timey dance routines, a useless sash, and a complete waste of an absolutely gorgeous venue. Oddly enough, though it was indeed something that Damon had noted, it wasn't the thing at the forefront of his mind as he found Elena and struck up a discussion. 

It'd been weeks since Stefan had been kidnapped, since he'd been rescued, and it almost made Damon angry to think that the result for saving his brothers life, the result of choosing to risk his own, had been the fact that Stefan had gone for another visit into Ripperville.

"Stefan is still drinking human blood," Damon said. "Copious amounts, in fact. He's almost at full ripper."

"No he's not," Elena said. It almost made Damon scoff, her immediate refusal to acknowledge his own findings. "He would've told me if he were struggling."

He did scoff that time. "He's Stefan, Elena. Reaching out for help when he needs it isn't something he's ever been capable of, not even when it gets as bad as it has." Sometimes, Damon was convinced his brother was as repulsed by the thought of asking for help as Damon was the thought of ever switching from human blood to animal. 

"No, he—"

"When Stefan gets a taste of human blood, it completely consumes him," Damon continued, cutting Elena off without a second thought. "He's capable of killing entire towns when he's on one of his ripper kicks, Elena. He needs to be stopped."

"He probably doesn't think he has a problem," Elena said, but Damon knew his brother. If Stefan had yet acknowledged that the human blood diet was indeed not working, he'd ignored that. He'd denied it, been suffering in the same state of denial as he always did whenever the ripper in him got to that point. 

"Stefans got the 'I've got it handled' façade down to a science, I agree," Damon said, nodding slightly. "However, if we don't stop him, he'll kill a bunch of people, turn off his emotions, and go a little overboard. When he finally snaps back, we'll get the dumbfuck with the hero hair, except for the fact that there'll be one other thing to make him just a little bit more insufferable; he'll feel a hell of a lot more guilt for what he did during the visit back to the old stomping grounds that ripperville has become. Even though we think he's mastered it already, Stefan Salvatore post ripper trip and given a fresh dose of guilt, will master the art of the brood once again." 

"How can we help him? How do you help a person who's convinced they don't need it?"

"That, I'll admit, is something I have yet to figure out," Damon said. Stefan, ever the man with impeccable timing, showed up at the door, standing to Damons right.

"What's going on?"

Damon shook his head as Elena shrugged. "Just having a bit of a chat, is all," he said. "I'm going to go get a drink and mingle a bit. You two enjoy your chat."

--

Damon grinned as Rhysand passed him a flute of champagne. "Missed me, Salvatore?"

"Always, Abernathy," Damon said, cheers'ing his glass against Rhysands. They were outside, and somehow, in the sunlight, Rhysand managed to look even better. He was wearing a suit—black slacks, a black button up, and a black blazer, with only a white tie to act as a pop of color and something that turned the evening attire into formal attire—with his daylight ring placed on a chain in show of an accessory, glasses over his eyes. He looked handsome, though Rhysand had never looked bad in a suit; after a time, Damon had begun thinking that looking bad in a suit was something of which Rhysand Abernathy was entirely incapable. 

"Your daylight ring is a lot simpler than I can last recall it being," Damon mentioned. It was a simple band of black obsidian, rose gold and white metal strewn throughout in lines that crossed only thrice. "Did you get a new one?" The daylight ring Damon could recall Rhysand being in possession of had an emerald stone.

"Klaus destroyed it the day of—" Rhysand paused. "Elijah called a witch friend. Got another one spelled for me, and it's been the one I've used ever since. I tend to prefer wearing it on a chain, makes it less of an inconvenience."

"And more of a conversational piece," Damon noted. "It fits your aesthetic, though. I'll give it that."

Rhysand laughed as he took a sip of his champagne. "Thank you, I suppose," he said. "We'll get this thing with Stefan under control, and we'll move on."

"What, from one thing to the next?" In Mystic Falls, there was always a problem, always an issue to be solved in one way or the next. It was growing increasingly tiresome. Damon was growing exhausted, and, though he'd never say it out loud, he knew that Rhysand was beginning to feel much the same way.

"One thing to the next," Rhysand rolled his eyes. "I've genuinely thought about escaping to New Orleans more than five times since arriving, but—"

"Marcel, right?" Damon asked. "Klaus has him compelled to notify him the second word of your presence gets into town?"

"He undid that compulsion in 2000. I don't have to worry about Marcel, far as I know. It's the other vamps Klaus has around the French Quarter. Those ones are the one's he's compelled."

"Have Marcel kill them," Damon suggested. 

"Goes against a rule Marcel has set. 'A vampire shall never kill one of their own'. He's a good guy, an honorable one, and I respect that he wouldn't kill a vampire. Not even for an old friend."

"So you'll stay in Mystic Falls, try to keep up with your degree, manage everything else, and what? Get five hours of sleep?"

"I've been getting three lately."

"Take a bit of time away, Rhysand," Damon said, part of him wanting to reach out and plant a reassuring kiss on Rhysands cheek, much like he would've in the decades before. "We'll manage this, handle any drama coming our way with rumors of Katherine rolling in, and you won't need to worry."

"I rather fancy worrying, Damon," Rhysand paired the words with a smirk. "Gives me something to do."

"Gives you too much to do, Rhys," Damon fired back. "I'm sorry for getting you into this mess."

"Don't be," Rhysand shrugged, taking another sip of his champagne. "I love you for it, actually. Thanks."

Damon allowed himself a grin. "Let's get this done and over with."

If all of the drinking and dancing they'd done that day was any indication to whether or not they did so successfully, Damon would've counted it a day well spent.