Damon’s never exactly loved Matt Donovan, always thought the town’s resident token human was a self righteous boring bastard. But as Matt comes into the Mystic Grill drunkenly ranting at anyone who’ll listen and a few who don’t give a crap about the South Carolina police department being so useless that they didn’t track him down when they first found Kelly dead, veering into another rant about how all his friends’ parents had been better parental figures to him than Kelly had anyway, and finally cursing himself for not having returned that last drunk message from Kelly years ago, Damon realises he can’t just ignore it.

He walks over with a glass of his favourite Bourbon, takes a seat next to Matt and hugs him, thinking about his own recent loss of Stefan, how there are so many regrets he has about things he could have done differently there, and thinks that maybe he and Matt have something in common after all.