thisismybar | Hayley

Hayley

Ric was... happy. Being able to sleep with Hayley -and really just sleep, god knew the sex wasn't lacking- even with Damon acting as a guard dog, had been good for him. No new bodies turning up, not missing chunks of time, those were pretty good, too. They weren't quite enough for him to let his guard completely down, but he didn't think there was going to be a whole lot of sleeping going on tonight, anyway.

And if there was, well, tonight Hayley would be even more equipped to play guard dog and take care of him. Elijah's reassurance helped keep that one metaphorical and mildly amusing.

He dumped the last load of camping gear onto the ground, and looked up at the sky to check the weather. "I don't think we're going to have to worry about being rained on tonight, but we should probably set up the tent." Who knew what tomorrow would bring,and it would be easier to relax somewhere enclosed. And limit bugs.

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Hayley took her clothes as he found them, shrugging back into them and smiling a little to find herself just a touch sore. "For what?"

"Letting me come out with you. Swimming with me. Being around. Restoring my fucking sanity." A lot of things. Just - thank you, Hayley, for being you.

Hayley froze where she was, stunned and watching Ric with her head tilted and bemusement flickering on her face. Then she moved swiftly to his side, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard. "Believe me when I say...it's my pleasure." Her lips curved in a smile. "I...you've given me a reason to be more than just a shadow passing through. A sense of...home I haven't had since my parents kicked me out. You don't know what that means to me."

He caught her when she moved, to return the tight hug. "I might, a little." Because she gave some of that to him. He smiled, warm but slight and maybe a little sheepish for all those admissions. "Come on. Let's go get back there so Damon can harass us about my lack of stamina or something, and we can pay him back with cracks about Elijah." He adored her. He possibly loved her. He needed a little retreat from that, now that it was back in the open. If he could convince himself to let go of her.

A retreat from it was probably a good thing. She didn't do well with overly emotional confessions, either, but she certainly wasn't going to break his hold on her to move away while his arms were still around her. Being held felt too good, weird as she would have found that months ago. "I approve of this plan, though there's nothing at all wrong with your stamina."

Seriously, her knees were still weak. No complaints, only bliss.

"Mm. My stamina's only human." But he grinned and winked a bit, gave her another kiss and finally, reluctantly, let her go so he could finish getting dressed for the walk back.

"There's nothing wrong with that," she said with a returned grin, slipping away from him reluctantly and tugging on the rest of her clothes, too.

"...I'm hungry again," she admitted with a laugh.

He laughed, too. "All right, then," he said, holding his hand out. "Let's go get you properly fed, then. Maybe even take you back home to do it, so you have more option and there's a stove."

Hayley took his hand, shifting in close to him. "That sounds like an excellent plan. And there are donuts while we break down the campsite."

He squeezed her hand, warm and solid before he started to walk back. "If Damon hasn't decided to demolish them. Which is," he admitted, "pretty unlikely, all things considered." All things being that they weren't filled with blood, or particularly impressive on their own.

"If he has, he can break down the tent," she said with a smirk. "I'm not quite sure my legs will hold me up for that long without sustenance."

Teasing about the food; so not teasing about the wobbly knees. Well done, Ric. Well done, indeed.

Ric didn't need any more reason to be smug, but he got it and he looked like the cat that got the canary when she gave him that answer. "He can break the tent down, anyway. Super speed, agility and strength - he can get us out of here faster than we can manage on our own. I'll find a way to make it up to him, later."

He didn't mean that to sound innuendo laden?

Hayley tossed him a smirk because no matter what he meant, it certainly came off that way. "Can I watch?"

Smug looked good on him, but sometimes it needed disrupting.

He stopped, stared, blinked, and then threw his head back and roared in laughter. "If that ever happens, you should videotape it, because I promise evidence is the only way I'll ever believe it happened."

"Deal." Believe her, she would highly, highly enjoy doing that. Clearly insecurity did not outweigh the potential hotness factor of that?

She was still grinning as she resumed heading toward the campsite where, actually, Damon had already gotten the tent down and packed up.

"I was getting bored," he informed them. Okay, really, he'd been trying to not pay attention to the audio porn echoing through the woods. He was going to have to call Elijah when they got back in town.

"I'm sorry that I'm old and I outgrew premature ejaculation," he said, deadpan and level. "And I'm even sorrier that your standards are so low, but mostly for Elijah."

He was going straight to hell.

Hayley laughed as Damon blinked, then made a face. "...That's not what I meant!" Well, not exactly in that way.

Hayley just grinned and moved to drop a kiss on Damon's cheek. "Thank you for packing up. I'm starving, so..."

Ric walked around to his other side and completely insanely also kissed Damon's cheek. "Come on, let's get her fed. If you're nice, we can even figure out how to get you fed."

These two together? And he was the happiest person in the world. It was a little obscene, really.

Damon gave them a look like they were out of their respective minds for the giddiness, but it was totally put on--really, seeing Ric this happy made him obscenely happy. Everything Ric had gone through, everything he'd lost because of their world, it wasn't right, and, yet, Damon had been able to do nothing to stop it.

He hardly thought his friendship was enough.

But now...Ric was smiling and happy and he laughed in ways Damon hadn't seen since early in things with Jenna. That Hayley came from the supernatural world seemed right or karmic justice--the world that had taken so much was giving something back or something.

"I can be very, very nice," he said with a hopeful look between them.

Hayley smirked just a little bit, mostly because of the last little bit of conversation with Ric. "I'll make sure my cell phone is charged."

Damon glanced at her, bemused, obviously having tuned them out at some point to not eavesdrop the whole time they were away.

Ric looked between the two of them and tilted his head a little, trying to figure out if there was a graceful way out or in.

Then he remembered that he was him, and he was happy, and what the hell.

"Make sure it's pointing in the right direction. How do you feel about History Teacher for lunch?" One of those was to Damon. One was not. Which was which was fairly clear.

Yeah. Friendship was enough.

"I think I can figure out which way to point it," Hayley said with a grin, tucking her arm through Ric's, even as Damon looked stunned, which softened to shock, which eased toward almost hopeful.

"...Seriously?"

In an emergency, he figured Ric would be there, but he wasn't expecting just an offer, ever, honestly.

Ric watched Damon's face, and then turned toward Hayley with a smile. "Maybe we should have started filming earlier?" Then he gave a slight shrug to Damon, and his smile softened but didn't entirely vanish. "You've been good to me, Damon. If I can trust you living with Hayley, I'm pretty sure I can trust you with my throat."

It was a big deal for him, but there was so much Damon had done for him lately, and so much of the reason he was happy was tied up in Damon. Not the same way as Hayley, but it was there. He wanted to give that back in a way that maybe Damon would let himself believe in for a little bit.

"Maybe so," Hayley agreed with a soft smile, gaze slipping from Ric to Damon, smile holding. The vampire had been so kind to her, kinder than she had expected at first, given their species were mortal enemies and all. Ty's being able to blend with them gave her hope, but she still hadn't been certain.

But he'd given her a home, helped her be able to stay here with Ric and for that she'd always be grateful.

She watched his expression change now, the hope growing and wondered for a moment at it, but then pushed it aside.

For his part, Damon looked like Christmas had come early. "You can." Like he'd ever hurt Ric feeding on him--or hurt him at all again.

Y'know...badly. He'd probably do something stupid to hurt him again, because he was an idiot, but never something like ripping his throat out.

There was a level of pain that was the price of friendship with Damon. Ric was apparently an emotional masochist, because he'd take that for all the benefit that came from it. It outweighed the hell out of the stupid moments, anyway. "I know. Come on. Let's get everyone home and then we can collapse into a big pile of happy, sappy, trust." Since, honest to god, that was about what this was amounting to.

And while he was feeling relieved at having Hayley be okay with him having offered, and Damon not thinking he'd lost his mind and taking it in the spirit it had been given, and was more than okay with the warm glow of happiness around them all, he could only take so much sap before he had to start reasserting a little practicality and gruffness.

Just a little.

Hayley wasn't normally so sappy, either. Honestly, Damon probably had that going more than either of them, but it still made her so very happy to just...be here. Have someone who cared about her. Have a place. It was stunningly like how she'd always thought a home might be--or a family, though her mind skittered away from that.

She hadn't had the best luck with family.

"Sounds good. I'm still kinda starving." Which she'd said, yes, but she felt the need to stress it. If only to pull back from the sap.

"Oh, you want to hurry?" Damon arched an eyebrow at her, after giving Ric a little smile. "I'd say I'd race you to the car, but that doesn't seem fair to Ric."

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