Alaric wasn't prone to fits of teenage rebellion. Maybe he felt owed one now. He'd lagged on everything; he'd lagged on packing up his room, until his father had ascended the stairs and given him a sad look, and then he'd done a half-assed job, mixing things up in ways that made no sense; never crossed his mind that he was the one who'd have to unpack it all when they got to their new home.

Home. Hilarious.

It was a twelve hour drive and Alaric never said a single word the whole way there. Not a word. Not to his parents, anyway, and couldn't they have waited? One more year, and Alaric would have gone to college, and not had to change schools and states and friends at the beginning of his senior year.

No, actually, not the beginning of his senior year. Halfway through the summer break. He'd begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay with his best friend Ben for the last month before school started but his stupid dad and his stupid dad's stupid sad eyes had said "Ric. Be a man." So he'd sort of met them halfway; he'd gone uncomplaining but silent. His parents in the front seat the whole way to Mystic Falls, population absolutely no-fucking-one, talking quietly, and Alaric sat in the back brooding aggressively.

From time to time he thought he might actually cry (basically because the entire goddamn motherfucking world was unfair) but he had stopped complaining.

They had arrived at a crappy boarding house with stupid lush grounds that night and they would, he knew, be staying there a couple of days. So Alaric aggressively isolated himself in his room and played games on his iPad, and refused to do anything useful until the truck with all their stuff arrived.

He was aggressively silent in the dining room.

"Got a nephew going into Senior year," said Zach, who Alaric hated. This was Zach's boarding house, and he was an idiot, and Alaric grunted at him. No doubt his nephew also had eyes a little too far apart. No doubt his nephew sucked. "I have two. But the other one's a little younger."

Alaric grunted again, and aggressively stabbed into his mashed potatoes, and didn't give a fuck about anything.

Alaric's parents were polite and that was annoying too.

The first night in their new house, Alaric aggressively failed to unpack a single fucking thing and committed himself to wearing only the clothes in his small pack until the end of time. And then all the aggression leeched out of him, and he pressed his face into the pillow and cried quietly. For a really long time. At some point his father came upstairs and sat alongside him on the bed and pressed a hand to Alaric's shoulder, and Alaric didn't mind it that much, but he couldn't bring himself to say that. He didn't shift away, though. Ed spoke quietly and reasonably and said "your grandfather will die this year, Ric."

Alaric felt like shit, but he didn't want to admit it.

"I need to be near him."

Fine, whatever.

"I did think about leaving you and your mom behind. But."

Just go away.

"You're our miracle, son. I can't leave you anywhere."

Please stop it.

"He'll be out of intensive care tomorrow and I expect you to act like a man. You'll be coming with us to the hospital."

Alaric nodded, and knew his father could feel it through his shoulder.

The following night the three sat in what appeared to be the only place in town to eat and drink. It was busy. All ages. Alaric couldn't help but watch a couple of boys playing pool. They didn't resemble each other strongly but still Alaric felt sure they were brothers; something in their vicious affection for each other and their feline features declared them so. One with hair that was black or nearly that, and eyes so pale they looked silver, and one with hair about the color of Alaric's. The dark haired boy had an electricity across his body that Alaric could almost feel from this distance, and the other, who Alaric thought was a year or two younger, had a relaxed grace Alaric envied.

"You should go and introduce yourself," Alaric's father said. He'd said little for a long time and Alaric felt bad, he did, because it had been terrible, seeing his grandfather so thin and frail. Alaric's parents were old; well, not old, but old enough, old enough so they looked like youngish grandparents. Alaric's mother was forty-two when he was born, and after years spent trying, and years spent accepting they'd never be parents, Alaric had either been a wonderful surprise or a horrible shock. How he felt about himself varied from day to day. His mom was nearly sixty, his dad a little older; his grandfather, the only grandparent he'd ever known, was recovering from yet another stroke.

It had been horrible, seeing him like that. His eyes were so alive, and his body was destroyed. Alaric had wanted to run away. They thought of being trapped in his head like that was horrific. His grandfather had sounded drunk and frustrated when he spoke, and Alaric wondered how long it would really take for him to just give up and die. His mother said it was in god's hands; his father didn't argue, but he had no faith to draw on. Alaric was pretty sure he was coming down on science's side but he didn't really know, yet. Either he hadn't thought about it enough or the thought of a world without god scared him as badly as the thought of a world with god.

He shook his head. "No doubt I'll meet them at school."

He pretended not to feel the glance his parents exchanged.

He'd show them. He'd fail every fucking class and they'd see how they had ruined his future.

A girl with big brown eyes, curls bouncing around her shoulders, entered the Grill, and joined the boys at the pool table. The dark-haired boy tensed and stepped away, returning her hideous girlish embrace with a resentment Alaric actually thought he could smell, before turning her much more obvious affection to the younger of the boys.

Alaric's father opened his mouth, and Alaric said "I said I'd meet them at school."

Alaric spent half his time in his bedroom and the other half of his time riding his bike all over Mystic Falls. He had, of course, decided early on that definitely, Mystic Falls sucked; but exploring it gave him a break from the boxes his was still (aggressively) failing to unpack. He visited his grandfather and struggled to meet his eyes.

One day, Alaric found himself close to the edge of the forest and decided to explore a little deeper. He dumped his bike, assuming it would be fine since all twenty residents of Buttfuck, Nowhere were undoubtedly at the Grill, and he stepped into the trees. Pretty, he thought. The forest smelled rich and green and glorious and it made him miss home so much he wondered if the trees would dob him in for sitting down and having a massive cry.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Did you follow me?"

Alaric turned on his heel, and came face to face with one of the boys he'd seen a week before at the aforementioned Grill. Only now he seemed to be in the throes of a terrible day. His arms and hands flexed terribly, and Alaric thought for a moment that he was about to get himself punched; but no, looked liked the guy had been crying for hours and looked like he was legitimately terrified that Alaric was going to write in to the yearbook committee about it.

Also, he was… gorgeous, so there was that.

Beautiful and broken and…

"No. Just… trying to find somewhere to…"

The guy's lip curled viciously. "Somewhere to what?"

Alaric opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "Just somewhere to be."

The guy's face crumpled horribly, and Alaric felt alarmed. His eyes darted here and there; was he looking for an escape, or help, or…

"I wasn't crying," the guy said, and Alaric nodded, shrugged, did a whole lot of other strange shit he couldn't have explained in combination.

"I know," Alaric said, unsure, but actually yeah pretty sure he was supposed to say something. "I'm A- I'm Ric." Sounded like a fucking idiot so he tried again. "Alaric. Um. Ric, just Ric."

"Well, Ric-just-Ric, I wasn't crying."

"I know." Alaric nodded, and found himself fighting the overwhelming urge to reach for the guy. And wanting to know his name. Beautiful face, and eyelashes that were just stupidly long and those eyes, so pale, flashing with a deep resentment… he just wanted something to call him. "I know. It's fine." He wished he was already the guy's friend, or that he had never come into the forest, and also and most especially that he had never moved here. And his hands twitched as if he was going to reach out, and whether the guy saw it or not, noticed or not, maybe took it the wrong way (well, the exact right way, but fuck fuck what was Alaric supposed to do? Turn off his hormones?) suddenly there was a fist at Alaric's jaw.

It wasn't a particularly good punch, and Alaric was a boxer; saw it telegraphed across long enough moments so he could absorb it, take it with next to no impact, and before he was quite sure he had it right his hands were closed over the guy's wrists, preventing him from taking a second swing. He leaned forward, maybe a little too far, meeting those ridiculous silver eyes, and he said "It's okay. You weren't crying."

There was a weird moment where the guy was trying to retrieve his hands, struggling viciously, but it was only a moment. It gave way quickly to a much weirder moment where the guy buried his face in Alaric's shoulder, and Alaric fought not to notice the way his eyes left damp marks against Alaric's shirt.

He found himself pulled down to the ground; not exactly deliberate but not exactly not-that, either. Like the guy was just collapsing, and bringing Alaric down with him. So Alaric, trying not to fall too hard (and fuck, but neither meaning, really) let go of his wrists and as they both fell, he put his arms around him.

Why, exactly, he knew without knowing that this was what he needed he didn't fucking know and the things he didn't know suddenly mattered less than one shit as the guy started to sob in earnest. Awkward as fuck, they were, all knees and elbows, until Alaric managed to shift into a better position against a half-rotted tree trunk, and closed his arms tight around him. He didn't say a word, just held tight, and weirdly, decided against resisting the instinct to kiss the guy's hair.

"Damon," came a pained voice.

"Damon," Alaric answered, nestling him closer.

Perhaps Mystic Falls wouldn't suck so badly after all.

Damon twitched and whined for a few moments longer, and finally relaxed, letting Alaric sooth him, one hand tugging at the soft tendrils of hair lying across the back of his neck.

It felt… remarkably like trust.

The hand Alaric could see, tucked against his shirt, didn't look like the hand of a teenager. It looked like the hand of a very old man; three fingers looked to have been broken, somewhere along the line, and imperfectly healed, twisted terribly. Alaric imagined the hand hurt somewhat, imagined that when Damon tried to hold a pen for a long time the bones would ache. Why weren't they properly set?

Damon was very still, for a good long while, drawing warmth and strength from Alaric. Alaric had no real idea of how long it had gone on. Ten minutes? An hour? Alaric had the oddest sense of privilege. Of being entrusted with something few ever were. His lips stayed pressed into Damon's hair, and one hand played over Damon's back as the other continued to touch his hair. His eyes closed, and stayed closed, and fuck, he couldn't help but imagine what they would look like from a distance. The most awkward sprawl, the most desperate affection. Alaric could have stayed like that, stayed forever, but eventually, Damon shifted. Awkwardly and definitely reluctantly, one hand still balled in Alaric's shirt, the other pushing against his shoulder. He looked, strangely, disgusted, but Alaric knew that it was disgust at himself, and fought against the pangs that were set off in his stomach. He sat up carefully as Damon pulled away, and fought to keep his face neutral as Damon balled a vicious fist in his shirt.

"If you ever tell anyone about this," Damon said, "I will kill you."

Alaric might not have adequately concealed his smile when he nodded his agreement. Damon stood awkwardly, and flashed a look that somehow combined regret and a threat of bodily harm but he needn't have worried.

It wasn't a week later that Alaric and his parents were eating at the Grill again, and Damon came in; alone, this time. He looked around, but took a long time to see Alaric, and when he did he simply gave the barest nod of acknowledgment before heading for the pool table, sitting on a tall stool, and crossing his arms. Alaric sighed. Not entirely unexpected. When you meet a guy and the first thing you do is cry snot bubbles on him there's bound to be a little awkwardness.

"You know him, son?" Alaric's father looked a little intrigued.

"Met him. Name's Damon."

"He's not the one who…" Alaric's father indicated the almost-vanished bruise on his chin and Alaric grumbled.

"I told you," he said. "That wasn't… I came off my bike. It wasn't even bad." He stuffed a chip in his mouth.

"We won't have you fighting. Not like…"

Alaric cringed. "'m not fightin'. C'n I…?"

And they'd had a good enough day, and Alaric had snarled rather less in the last several days that he had in the previous week, and had unpacked three boxes of his stuff without being asked to, so his mother nodded. She passed him twenty dollars from her purse. "How will you get home?"

"It's a twenty minute walk, mom," he said, incredulous.

Reluctantly, his father nodded as well. Alaric smiled briefly and slipped out of the booth, after kissing his mother on the cheek.

Damon was not welcoming.

"What?" he asked, when Alaric approached.

"Pool?"

"Pool? Why would I play pool with you?" And Alaric got it, he really did, but he'd picked Damon out to be his first friend already and it wasn't going to have started with the scene in the forest. It was going to start right here and right now, over a game of pool.

"Because there's no one else to play with." Alaric stuck a quarter in the slot (laughing a little because you couldn't play pool for a quarter anywhere in Boston any more) and racked the balls. Damon frowned, and kept his arms crossed, and when a waitress came to point out that they couldn't play if they didn't have drinks, Alaric ordered them each a coke.

Damon still sat sullen, glaring at Alaric.

"Come on," Alaric said. "I just moved here. I have no friends and no way to meet anyone until school starts. And you have no one to play with."

Damon stepped off the stool and leaned close to Alaric.

"I don't like you," he insisted, but Alaric could see he was hurt and embarrassed and probably wished that Alaric had been a tourist, or that he'd never shared his name, or that he'd killed Alaric and buried him in the forest.

Alaric smiled. "I'm a big fan of yours, too," he said. "You wanna break?"

Damon snatched a cue off the wall, and as he turned, his shirt dropped an inch at the neckline, revealing part of an ugly black bruise. Yeah, he was getting the shit beaten out of him on a regular basis. That was why he wasn't crying in the forest that day. That was why he was such a barrel of laughs. Well, Alaric wasn't going to acknowledge it, not this early on. They played pool in relative silence, though Alaric managed to say that he'd moved from Boston, that his grandfather was dying, where he was living. Damon managed to grunt his responses in sentences of five words or less, but he scowled less, over time.

Someone came to leave a coin on the corner of the table, and Alaric nodded. Three games and he'd won each one, though he suspected it was an advantage that his fingers were straight and his knuckles bent precisely the way he wanted them to. He did his best not to watch too closely and found himself impressed with Damon's haughtiness. There was something… tough about it, something fierce. He wasn't broken after all.

Alaric asked about the brother he'd seen here that first night and got two grunts. "Stefan. Junior." And the girl? "Elena. Junior. Pain in the ass."

When the game ended, Damon looked like he wanted to do absolutely anything but go home. They stepped outside into the night, and Damon paused, scrunched his hands into fists and stalked for a few moments.

"I should go," Alaric said. "Or…"

"Yeah, go," Damon agreed, with a shrug. But he didn't take off in the other direction, just looked at Alaric with some as-yet undescribed combination of loathing and want in his eyes.

He didn't want to go home.

"You could come and watch a couple of movies or something," Alaric said with a shrug.

"Might as well," Damon agreed, brightening considerably and following Alaric down the street.

The television in Alaric's bedroom was a bribe. It had been bought for him the week his parents explained they were moving to Mystic Falls. He was glad he had set it up; certainly he hadn't watched it yet, but he had a hard drive full of films illegally downloaded from the Internet and he'd tested everything to make sure it was working. Alaric popped popcorn downstairs in the microwave in the kitchen and pulled a couple of cans of soda from the fridge, keeping noise to a minimum. His parents were famous for sleeping through most anything but Alaric, at his core, was a respectful kid. They'd keep the sound down low.

When he retuned to the bedroom Damon was still scrolling through titles.

"I haven't seen a movie in ages," he admitted.

Alaric picked the Avengers, and they sprawled over his bed to watch.

Well, Damon watched. Damon ate popcorn with crooked fingers and stared at the screen with bright eyes and sipped at his soda with palpable enthusiasm. Alaric mostly watched Damon. Subtly, he hoped. It was hard not to watch Damon. Fascinating face lighting up and reacting to everything on the screen like it was all brand new, the miracle of television.

"You're staring," Damon said, with a flick of his ridiculously long eyelashes. Alaric grinned.

"You look like you've never seen a television before."

Damon shifted, sprawled on his stomach. He folded his hands and rested his cheek on them, eyeing Alaric with a half smile. Definitely the least grumpy he'd seemed since they met.

"More like I can't sit around in my house. It's not…" he glanced around Alaric's room, but didn't shift from where he lay. "It's not like this," he said at last. Alaric wondered what that actually meant. He wasn't an idiot and he wasn't naïve and Damon was getting beaten up at home, and it wasn't by his little brother. Which probably meant his father. But families could seem almost entirely normal other than some major bit of dysfunction.

But Alaric wasn't ready to push. He returned his attention to the movie, pushing a couple of pieces of popcorn into his mouth. Good movie. Better with a friend, especially a strange friend was now making no secret of the fact he was staring at Alaric.

"You queer?"

Alaric gave a wry smile. "Queer-ish." More popcorn, and soda for his suddenly dry mouth, and then Damon was tugging on his sleeve. Alaric lay down, heart hammering in his chest.

"I still don't like you," Damon said at last, propping himself up on his elbows and returning to the film, half of a very feline smile curling up one side of his face. Alaric chuckled.

Alaric dozed off, and when he woke up, sometime well before the sun rose, Damon was gone.

They didn't see each other for nearly a week. Alaric could have punched himself. Why hadn't he asked for Damon's phone number? Found out where he lived? He rode his bike all over Mystic Falls, and wrangled extra driving lessons from his parents, watching for Damon on every street corner, until his father had to grab the wheel.

"Lunch," he said firmly, and they stopped at the Grill.

Over club sandwiches Ed wrangled a little information at a time from his very reluctant son. "His name is?"

"Whose name?"

"Your friend."

"Damon." The bacon was good and crispy.

"The nephew of the owner of the boarding house. Well." Ed took a couple of bites, sipped at a weak cup of coffee. "Well. And he's a good kid?"

Alaric knew this language well. Did Damon offer Alaric heroin or take him street racing, was the gist of it. Alaric nodded. "Yeah, dad."

"But?"

"No but."

"You had but-face." Ed smiled.

A funny relationship they had. Ed was too old for a teenager, and it made Alaric act a little older (when he wasn't on an extended snit) and Ed perhaps act – or try to act – a little younger. He held Alaric's eye as he sipped his coffee, and Alaric felt himself wilt a little under the gaze.

"I think… home is… bad."

Ed winced. "I see."

"Doesn't mean he is."

"Of course not."

"You like him?"

"Dad…"

"It's alright, Ric. You know your mother and I -"

"Oh, please, dad, don't finish that sentence," Alaric said, covering his eyes, though he was quietly and acutely grateful that his ambiguous sexuality didn't bother them at all.

The rest of the meal was spent in silence, and Alaric actually felt a little better.

But Damon did not appear.

One night as Alaric lay waiting for sleep to come a pebble, or a few pebbles, hit his window. He woke the rest of the way, and crossed the room in old track pants. He opened the window in time for another pebble to come flying in. It missed his face by an inch.

"Damon?" A loud whisper. Enough to feel like he'd shattered the night. The figure below his window was entirely still. "Come to the front door."

Moments later Alaric snuck near silently through the house and opened the front door, still bleary-eyed. It was two in the morning, according to the clock over the stove, and even if one was a little weirdly socialized that was getting a little late for a social call.

Which this wasn't.

When Alaric opened the door, Damon nearly stumbled through it, and almost directly into Alaric's arms, dried blood crusted around his nose and one eye swollen almost shut. He nearly pulled Alaric to the ground again but Alaric held him up, and pushed the door closed with one hand. He led Damon up the stairs and helped him onto the bed without a word, before returning to the kitchen to take an ice pack from the freezer. He wrapped it in a towel, grabbing a couple more to wash Damon's face with, and traipsed with a heavy heart up the stairs.

He gazed longingly at his parents bedroom door and reminded himself that he was a man (though at times like this, he still felt like a boy – useless, and unsure of himself, and in over his head in a cruel world).

Not wanting to blind Damon with the glare of the overhead light, he turned on the bedside lamp.

His head was full of questions. Why did he do it? Did you argue? Does he drink? Does Stefan know? Do you defend yourself? But none of those questions seemed right to ask so he settled the ice pack over the bridge of Damon's nose and his grossly swollen eye, and began to wash the blood away from his nose and lip, and said "tell me if it hurts."

"It hurts."

"Tell me if I make it hurt worse, asshole."

Damon grinned at that and it reopened a cut on his lip. Only just.

"I should take you to the hospital. Wake my dad up and…"

"No," Damon said, and Alaric feared he would insist on leaving, but he only shifted the icepack a little on his face and shook his head. "No hospital. Forget it. Child services, and…"

"It's okay."

There was nothing okay about it, but Damon didn't move and Alaric continued to wash his face, even the insides of his nostrils, and that was a little weird even for Alaric. But Damon stayed still, didn't fight it, didn't argue. Once or twice he shifted the icepack, trying to find cold spots.

Alaric took it, and Damon didn't protest that, either. He gladly accepted the replacement after Alaric had fetched it from the freezer.

"I suppose you wanna know why I came here."

Alaric shook his head, and then realized Damon couldn't even see him. "No," he said. "Just… glad you did. This happen often?"

Damon seemed to still, and then he gave a strange shake-nod combination. "He's usually smart enough to stay away from my face," he said. "Can't have people asking questions."

The fact he was so careful made Alaric a little angrier. Made it seem pre-meditated, cruel. "He drink?"

Damon gave a weak laugh, barely a snicker. "Wish he did. When he did he used to sit in the living room and cry like a little bitch, didn't have the energy for…" He trailed off. "I'm tired," he admitted, and turned the ice pack in his hand again.

Alaric nodded, balling the bloodstained towels to drop into the bathtub. He'd deal with them tomorrow. "I'll be on the couch," he said, standing up off the bed. There was spare linen in the downstairs closet. "Come grab me if you need anything."

Alarmed, Damon half sat up.

"Don't give me any bullshit," Alaric murmured. "Alright? You're beat to shit. You're not sleeping on the couch."

"No," Damon said, and winced, and lay back down. "I wasn't going to say. Just." He pulled the icepack from his face. The swelling had gone down, a little, and his eye opened wider, and Alaric was pretty sure his nose wasn't broken. He looked angry and suspicious and afraid, though. "Stay?"

Alaric's heart thumped once in his chest. Loud enough to echo in his ears.

"Okay," he said.

Damon didn't protest as Alaric pulled off his shoes. Strange; for someone who seemed to carry so much rage around he seemed so calm and pliant. Not that he was in a position to bitch, exactly. Still with the icepack held over his face. "Give me that," Alaric said. Damon hissed his protest. "It's warm," Alaric said. "It's not doing anything. I'll stick them back in the freezer so they're cold again tomorrow."

Damon sulked and muttered and handed it over.

After returning the packs to the kitchen Alaric returned to his room, checking that the door was properly shut. Damon was pulling his shirt over his head – gingerly – and Alaric caught sight of yellow and green bruises over his ribs. Old bruises. Mostly old. His mind flickered back to the night in the forest.

Well, he supposed, a bit over two weeks old.

Alaric handed over good painkillers – leftovers of his mother's, who had injured her back some months before, and fortunately had kept the remaining prescription in the medicine cabinet – and Damon accepted them, and a glass of water, with just a sheepish look for thanks. "I don't mind sleeping on the couch," he said again.

"Shut up," Damon said, putting the glass on the side table, and rolled onto his side, facing the wall. And also, quieter: "thanks."

Alaric didn't know how much later it was that sleep began to take him. He had listened to Damon snore without sleeping, snore through blocked nostrils, for a very long time, measuring out time that way. It had to hurt more than Damon had admitted, but the pain pills were strong, and Alaric noticed him begin to relax, a little at a time, and started to think he might have fallen asleep. He might have fallen asleep himself, if Damon hadn't turned, suddenly, and with a voice that was as much stoned as it was sad, said "It wasn't always like this."

How Alaric knew Damon wanted to be held he wasn't sure, but he put an arm out and Damon crawled to him. A better position than they'd had in the forest. Alaric was gentle, letting his hand move over Damon's back, broader than he'd thought it was when Damon was clothed, and Damon, bewilderingly, buried his face (which had to hurt) against Alaric's chest. He cried silently, if wetly, and Alaric didn't comment.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Damon said, so Alaric held him until they both fell asleep.

When Alaric woke he was cold, and alone. And bitterly disappointed. He supposed Damon had snuck out in the early hours. He pulled on a t-shirt and sweater and padded down the stairs.

Pale blue eyes partially hidden by a mop of black hair glittered at him over a bowl of cereal.

"Coffee?" called Dianne, and Alaric nodded. It was about as surreal a scene as he could have imagined. His mother in her house-coat fussing in the kitchen, his father with his face in the newspaper and Damon eating cereal like he thought someone might steal it from him, hand curved protectively around the bowl. Dianne pulled an icepack out of the freezer, wrapping it carefully, and set it beside Damon for when he finished his breakfast.

"Does he talk?" Ed asked, from behind his paper.

"I talk," Damon said. "I'm eating." He sounded put out.

Ed grinned, and Alaric grinned, and then it seemed a little more normal. A little. Not a lot. Alaric took coffee and poured cereal for himself, and Ed said goodbye, and kissed Dianne, and Damon looked a little wistful. Ed clapped Damon gently high on his arm and leaned in, making Damon shrink back, though he met Ed's eyes. "Next time come over before you fall down the stairs," he said, very seriously, and Damon cringed.

"Okay," he said.

Ed nodded meaningfully at Alaric and draped his satchel over his shoulder before heading out the door.

Alaric took his place, there by Damon at the sunny kitchen table, and pretended like the whole world hadn't gone quite mad.

"I'm off too," Dianne said, kissing Alaric on the forehead. "I'll be back in time to cook supper. Don't sit around the house all day, mow the lawn and finish your unpacking." The look in her eye said hey, kid, just cut you a huge break, can we call the rebellion done?

And Alaric nodded. Said, "bye, mom," and watched as she pulled the door shut behind her.

Damon sipped Alaric's coffee and Alaric couldn't bring himself to care.

"Your parents are weird."

Alaric was immediately defensive. People had said it his whole life; or rather, when he was a little kid, people said "isn't it nice that your grandparents are so involved in your life" and then, as he got older, they whispered "aren't your parents quite old, to have a child your age?"

"They're cool," he said, a little growly.

"They are." Damon sounded wistful. His mangled fingers gripped the coffee cup. "They get up early, huh."

Alaric didn't want to imagine the scene; Damon trying to sneak out of the house unheard and coming face to face with Ed and Dianne. He imagined Ed standing with his mouth open for a long time, and then nodding sharply and saying "Damon, is it? Yes. Breakfast? Goodness, look at you."

He imagined Damon freezing on the stairs like a deer in headlights and spitting "I fell down the stairs."

Dianne would have crossed her arms and prepared a tirade about terrible parents, and Ed would have stayed her with a sad, gentle look that said he knew more than she did. And he would have said "I can see that. Well, breakfast, anyhow," and Damon would have been too surprised to leave.

Alaric crossed to the coffee machine and poured himself another cup, bringing it to the table, and returned to methodically eating his cereal.

"I like them," Damon said firmly.

"Apparently they like you too. I can tell because I didn't get woken up with the two of them yelling in my room."

"I should have waited."

"Trying to get home before…"

"God, no," Damon said. "Not going home until dad's definitely gone for the day. Noon? Perhaps. And he'll have AA tonight and he'll tell the…" he made a soft whining noise in his throat and tipped his head, and the way the sun hit Damon's face like that leeched all the color from the bruise over his eye (though it did nothing for his busted lip) and for a second he looked utterly like himself, beautiful. Just himself and beautiful. "He'll tell about his wife who died five years back, and how much he loved her. And about how he drank because it hurt too much not to drink. And he'll talk about how Jesus' love saved him and now he hasn't touched a drop in three years. And they won't ask how he split his knuckle because he's working his program."

Alaric reached out, pressed his hand to Damon's arm, and Damon pushed against it, so hard and so quickly that it could have unbalanced Alaric quite easily. But he let his hand slip up over Damon's shoulder and cup around the back of his neck, and before he knew quite what was happening Damon was leaning awkwardly across the corner of the table and kissing him hard.

Although Alaric thought he knew this would, happen, eventually, perhaps from that moment out in the forest, it surprised him. Perhaps that Damon would kiss him with a mouth so sore, with the taste of milk on his lips, first thing in the morning on a Friday. Perhaps he thought they'd be playing pool at the Grill one night and then after ambling awkwardly, silently home, and Damon would angle his face up for a quick, casual peck on the lips which was anything but casual, sort of a litmus test for the second kiss. "Seeya," he'd say, and pretend his step wasn't a little brighter, as he stepped away down the street. Or else they'd be watching a movie, painfully conscious that only an inch or two separated them, and they'd close that inch, tangling their bodies together while some crappy battle played itself out on the screen.

He hadn't expected such ruthless affection, such abandon, from a first kiss. He hadn't expected Damon's bright eyes to be open and on him, even if one was hideously swollen and red where it should have been white. He hadn't expected Damon's hand to tangle in his shirt as if he was going to haul him over the kitchen table (and really, if anyone was going to haul anyone across this table, it was Alaric who would do the hauling, and Damon who would be hauled. Alaric had a good three inches on Damon and was bigger and stronger too. Nourished by good food and deep love).

"Let's go upstairs." Damon whispered it against Alaric's mouth, eyes cautious. "I want to touch you."

Something in the way he said it made Alaric shiver. But. "It's eight thirty in the morning."

Damon didn't shrug, or expand on his plan; he just held Alaric's eyes.

Was it really relevant? The eight thirty in the morning thing?

"Okay," Alaric said, and they walked up the stairs in a way that didn't suggest that there would be clothes torn off and scattered through the house.

Damon crawled onto the bed, gleefully kicking off his shoes and removing his shirt, wincing when his shoulder rotated all the way up. "I still don't like you," he said, as Alaric crawled after him, and carefully, gingerly, covered Damon's body with his own.

"Don't like you either," Alaric said cheerfully, and Damon grinned. It made him wince. The tear to his lip. Alaric vowed he'd kiss gently, though Damon didn't give him a chance to; the kiss was a battle, and a dance, and it would take them a little while the find the rhythm that was just theirs, but they'd find it, Alaric knew.

"You can't fuck me," Damon said, when a long kiss broke, and Alaric laughed. "I mean it. We can touch, and stuff," and as Damon said it he wriggled his hips enough to grind his cock, already hard as nails, against Alaric's; so neatly tucked along side each other in their fabric prisons. "But I've never done that. And I don't want to. Not yet."

"Not on the menu," Alaric promised. His own experience was relatively limited and much as he planned to get back to it some day he was perfectly happy to stick with his hands, and his lips, and his tongue, to make someone feel good. Damon wrapped arms and legs around Alaric like an octopus. Aggressive and clingy as they kissed a little deeper. Made Alaric feel ten feet tall and bulletproof, especially when Damon demanded they both take off the last of their clothes. Damon reminded Alaric of a seal; pale and cool and almost hairless, until a coal-black snail trail led from his navel to a chaotic thatch of hair around what was hands down the prettiest cock Alaric had ever seen (and in what started as a fit of desperation to understand the mechanics of sex between men, and finished up something more like a hobby, Alaric had watched a lot of porn).

Alaric flinched at the array of bruises over Damon's body, and Damon saw it, and shrugged irritably.

"Don't look at them. Don't think about them."

"Okay," Alaric said, and he did what they'd said they would do; he touched Damon, feather soft in places, and rougher in others, learning what they both liked. Damon's fingers were clumsier, but just as eager, and unexpectedly experimental. They tumbled like gymnasts on the bed, trying to work out what felt good, what felt better. Damon closed his hand around Alaric's cock, seeming surprised (at what? Alaric wanted to know, but couldn't ask yet) and not yet ready to do more than that.

Well, that was fine. Alaric manhandled Damon until he was lying rather more traditionally with his head on a pillow, stretched out on the bed. Damon purred appreciatively, though he looked nervous as well.

He wouldn't, not for long. "It's okay," Alaric said, and marveled as Damon forced himself to relax, looking oddly hopeful. He closed his hand over the base of Damon's cock and licked gently over the head, making Damon's body roll, almost panicked in his urgency. The silken texture and the delicate, salt-bitter flavor of pre-come made Alaric's head swim.

He would make Damon feel good.

Wetly he let Damon slip into his mouth, and memorized the sound that Damon made for future reference and masturbatory material. His other hand slipped up to pinch carefully over Damon's nipple, and Damon whimpered. Alaric didn't let himself wonder how similar it would be to the sound he made when fist met face. He just sucked and licked and wondered how long, really, Damon could last for; asked himself if anyone had done this for him before, and actually suspected not. Even kissing, he was unpracticed, and for all Alaric generally felt helplessly young and stupid as far as sex was concerned, he was now promoted to samurai, ninja, grand master.

It lasted about five minutes, with Alaric carefully timing the rhythm of his hand to the rhythm of his mouth, and as enthusiastically as Damon came, it was sort of disappointing, that it was over so quickly; he would have liked to coax those moans from Damon for an hour or two.

Next time.

Damon lay bonelessly on the bed as Alaric crawled uncomfortably to lie beside him.

"I'm not sure if I can do that," Damon said, after a long while.

"It's okay." Alaric smiled, and meant it, hard and aching as he was; he'd intended to make Damon feel good, and he had apparently succeeded. Damon leaned to kiss him, letting out a mewl of surprise as he tasted himself on Alaric's lips.

"Can we sleep?" he asked, smiling, nudging his nose against Alaric's.

"Yeah," Alaric said, because they hadn't slept much, and an unsatisfied boner could only keep on keeping on for so long. But Damon was gone when he woke again.

Alaric's grandfather kept dying a little tiny bit at a time. Alaric visited daily and eventually got the hang of it. Slipping a shallow spoonful of pudding between the old man's lips, and smiling easily when his grandfather look embarrassed. Holding his hand, pretending the texture of the skin didn't remind him of onion skins flaking away. Alaric spoke quietly, knowing he was understood, even if his grandfather couldn't answer.

"Babies have it easy, pop," he said. "You might as well enjoy this." And he read out loud, Call of the Wild, and when that was done, he started Gravity's Rainbow, and though he doubted his grandfather could follow the story, Pynchon's rhythm seemed to sooth him in the way wolves could not.

One day, Damon knocked on the front door. Alaric didn't see it happen, didn't hear the knock, because he was lying sprawled over the floor in his bedroom, headphones over his ears, wishing for the first time in his life that the last few days of the summer holidays were done with. Staring at the cracks in the ceiling and vaguely thinking he'd like to know exactly when this house was built. He was frustrated and irritable and though he'd never have admitted it to a soul he was close to tears, everything pent up and terrible in him just then.

And then the door opened.

Angling his head up to see who was coming to check on him – his mother, or his father – Alaric was surprised to see Damon. He rubbed his eyes, and slipped the headphones off, and blinked several times. And smiled.

"Hey," he said, as Damon pushed the door closed and sprawled out beside him on the floor.

"Four days," Damon said, and it was almost impossible to say whether he was cheerful or miserable about it. But he twisted the headphones so he could listen to one side and Alaric to the other, and they lay like that for a long time.

"Senior year," Alaric said, after a while, and he thought it might be just to make noise.

"Senior year." Damon shimmied closer, until it was awkward, their bodies pressed too close for bodies spread flat. "I probably won't graduate," he said, with what was the worst-feigned nonchalance Alaric had ever heard.

"You will," Alaric disagreed.

"Oh?" it was almost a trill, a challenge.

"You'll graduate, and we'll get the fuck out of this shitty town," Alaric said, voice flat and almost expressionless. "We'll live in New York. Chicago. Anywhere with more people in it than Mystic Falls," he qualified, and let his finger brush against Damon's.

"Salvatores don't really get to leave." Unexpectedly, Damon let go of his side of the headphones (it sprang back at hit Alaric in the face, but at Damon's wide-open, bright eyes, he stopped caring), and rolled until he was lying over Alaric's body. "Family responsibilities."

"Fuck family responsibilities," Alaric argued, and pressed his mouth to Damon's.

What they had made no sense. What made even less sense was that Alaric's parents barely batted an eyelid when Damon strode from Alaric's bedroom in the morning and asked if there was coffee yet. It made no sense to Alaric that the car he'd been promised when he graduated appeared a full nine months ahead of schedule. Alaric's parents took him to dinner a few weeks into the term and Alaric prayed the earth would swallow him whole, because something about the cautious way in which they made sure it was family only told Alaric they had Things™ to talk about and he hated that.

"We like him," Ed promised.

"And we met the father," Dianne added. Alaric snapped his head up.

Alaric bristled. "I can't believe you…"

"Quite by coincidence," Dianne promised. "My Alaric. You know we wouldn't… well. He's a nice boy, if he's quiet, and you your father and I don't care that you… that you're…"

"Holy fuck," Alaric said, "Please don't finish that sentence."

Ed chuckled.

"All we wanted to say," Ed said, closing his hand over Alaric's wrist, "is that this is Senior year. This time next year you'll be living on campus in one of the best colleges in the country. We don't care which," he hastened to add, and Alaric felt his eyes burn, because he didn't really think he deserved this much understanding; he'd been a complete shit since they'd said they were moving. "Don't let this – any of this – change that. Damon is welcome. Any time. Always, and as long as you're being careful -"

"- oh, holy fuck, dad…"

"- as long as you're being careful it doesn't bother us, as long as your homework is done and your eyes are on a good school, and your attentions, too. We're old, son, We don't really know…"

"Dad seriously you can stop anytime…"

"I'm not done. Son."

Alaric met his eyes.

"Do not fuck up Senior year."

Alaric had heard his father swear on perhaps five occasions, total. He nodded seriously, and extricated his wrist from his father's hand, and returned to his pasta.

Damon slept in Alaric's bed as often as not and no fresh bruises appeared.

They fooled around, and Damon learned that he loved to wrap his lips around Alaric's cock as much as he loved the rest; as much as he loved the feeling of Alaric swallowing him down, as much as he loved to close his wonky hand over Alaric, and tug, and pull, until Alaric spilled over his fingers. The night of the Spring Fling, which they both attended, and mocked, and left early (leaving Stefan and Elena slow dancing beneath tacky sparkle lights and confetti) Damon spread himself over Alaric's bed and said, with a smile that was not bruised or battered, and with a naked body that bore no recent signs of abuse, "I'm ready."

Alaric was confused, momentarily, but only momentarily.

"Stop me, if you want to," he said. "I'm serious, Damon…"

Damon shrugged, in a way intended to communicate that he didn't care, and instead insisted that he had made his decision. "We were going to get there eventually, right?" he said, eyes glittering. "I want this, you want this… you want this, right?"

Alaric shivered, and kissed Damon in every place he could reach, and praised all the gods that his sex life these days meant that he wasn't going to go off like a bottle rocket the moment Damon and his tight little sphincter closed over him. He was about to contemplate all the most awkward questions a person could ever ask when Damon reached for him, and murmured into his chest. "Clean and pristine because I can work the internet, you know, and would you stop thinking so much, you're making my head hurt. Can't I choose?"

So Alaric slicked his fingers with all the lube under the sun and unlocked Damon's body with a combination he prayed he'd be the only one to ever know, and he marveled at the way Damon's head rolled back, the way Damon whimpered at the intrusion. He wanted to say fifty times, stop me, if it hurts, if it doesn't feel right, if it doesn't feel good, but he didn't. By the time he had adequately prepared Damon's body and rolled a condom onto his poor aching cock he was shaking with the want of it, and when Damon, entirely relaxed, so trusting it hurt to look at, spread and stretched to accommodate him, he moaned loudly and did not stop until he was deeply seated, with Damon's legs wrapped close around him.

"It hurts," Damon said. Alaric, alarmed, moved to pull away, but Damon held him in with ferocious legs. "And it feels good," he added, with his eyes wide open and gorgeous. Alaric rolled his hips, keeping Damon full, grateful that the house was empty, that his homework was done, that he didn't have a single thing to think about that could detract from the fact that he was relieving Damon of his technical virginity, and that Damon was wearing the face he only seemed to wear around Alaric; wholly trusting and beautiful and aggressively affectionate.

And then he began to really move.

"Burns," Damon said, eyes fluttering shut, and then he opened them again. "It's good," he promised again, and Alaric was almost helpless against his body's instincts, by then. He set aside the strange looks of their classmates when he and Damon sat too close together at lunch, with Stefan and Elena and their friends. He set aside all thoughts of everything but the close, tight heat of Damon's body, and began to thrust in earnest.

"Jesus fuck," he murmured, as Damon arched his body up, as Damon's hips began to press back in earnest, as his eyes closed.

Alaric set aside thoughts of the future, too, and that was twenty times harder. He pictured himself and Damon sharing a loft in a distant city, sprawled over threadbare carpet, and he set that aside, hard as it was, and focused instead on Damon's legs closed over his body, on Damon's hips curled awkwardly to meet every thrust, on the way Damon spilled suddenly over his own stomach. At that he imagined a future where they would last seemingly forever. Where they were a million miles from Damon's father and cruel classmates and all the rest of it. A future where he could walk down the street holding Damon's hand, if they felt like it, and people would know they were together even if they didn't hold hands and only stood close. He thrust beyond the sudden, tragic stuttering of his hips, gazing into Damon's eyes, which were still blown open and wide and gorgeously trusting.

"I fucking love you, Damon," Alaric said, as his orgasm finished its descent.

"Yeah, well," Damon said, eyes still shocked and flushed. "I still don't like you much at all."

They slept tangled over the mattress, sheets barely clinging over their hips, and started the rest of their lives that way.