A/N: Hello, everyone! So jbezzy2easy (the lovely author of Detente) and I co-wrote this one-shot, repeat, one-shot mostly from Galen Vaughn's POV. We thought it would interesting to see how he came to the conclusion that kidnapping Damon would force Bonnie to raise Silas when everyone else in the world knows those two are not the best of friends, and can barely tolerate one another. Just look at this as if it were a missing, yet very pivotal scene. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: These characters are the creative property of LJ Smith and The CW. No copyright infringement is intended.
He hid in the bushes watching everything and waiting patiently. It was quiet, almost too quiet. Until recently his job has was chalk-full of action, but this, this was a whole lot of inaction. He didn't even need his special vervain-laced weaponry. There would be no fighting, no torture, and no killing only a lot of waiting and watching. That was the assignment though. At least it was until he was able to uncover some worthy information. Something he could use to stop them.
The thorny shrubbery outside of an office at Whitmore College was starting to grate on his nerves. He'd been hiding for nearly an hour when the witch rushed past him into the building closely followed by the dark-haired vampire. The time had passed slowly and each breath he took was pained by the thorns poking into his side at his exhalation. He almost wanted to utter words of gratitude to the gods when the vampire finally reemerged pulling the witch along, tightly by the wrist.
"Let go of me Damon!" she said between clenched teeth
Damon let go of her…ten seconds later.
"Why did you insist to tag along if all you were going to do was complain?"
"I'll be the one asking the questions, witchy, thank you. Do you know anything about Professor Creepy or are you so caught up on his hotness—,"Damon had to keep from laughing –"that you can't see straight?"
Bonnie rolled her eyes heavenward before folding her arms across her chest. She laughed derisively. "I can't believe we're having this conversation," she murmured quietly.
Damon leaned forward and cupped his ear. "What was that? You can't believe we're having this conversation? Well we're having it. This guy is shady and he's trying to pull the wool over your eyes."
"Why do you even care?" Bonnie retorted heatedly. "As I recall you don't give a damn about my opinion, not about Elena and her questionable behavior or anything else so why does it matter that I'm spending time with Shane learning how to practice magic again? I thought you of all people would be happy about that. I mean…weren't you the one who said that 'the witch who loses her powers gets left out of the important conversations' or something to that effect?"
Damon pursed his lips, nostrils flared and looked away. He didn't want to admit this but he knew something of Shane's true intentions and it was anything but altruistic. He wasn't teaching Bonnie how to practice magic out of the goodness of his heart, or as the last dying wish of her grandmother. Dude had a motive and it was that motive that made Damon want to wave a red flag in front of Bonnie's face. True, he had never gone out of his way to warn her about anything before, but things were slightly different now. Damon hadn't exactly figured out what was different, but even he could own up that he didn't like Shane hanging around Bonnie.
He didn't have a good feeling about the professor. And his gut never led him wrong.
Vaughn scratched furiously at his side as the pointy, thorn bushes continued to have their wicked way with him. Yet he pushed his irritation to the back burner as he strained his ears to listen to the witch and the vampire have it out.
He had been following the both of them for weeks—separately and admittedly he never heard the witch bring the vampire up in conversation, but several times he overheard the vampire make several references to the witch albeit scathing they all were, but they were references nonetheless. Of what he had been able to gather he knew the vampire was hung up on the dopplebitch. Why? Hell if Vaughn knew. She was plain in his eyes, bit of a whiner, too, but for whatever reason she had the dark-haired vampire and his younger brother wrapped tightly around her finger.
But seeing the elder Salvatore show concern—if this is what that was—for someone other than the dopplebitch was a bit confusing, but interesting. What was really going on here?
Bonnie lifted her eyebrows when Damon continued on with his silence. She didn't understand why he took it upon himself to follow her to Shane's office, interfere with their session with his googly eyes, and promptly yank her out. He did everything but toss her over his shoulder, and pound his chest with closed fists.
"Damon?" Bonnie spat out his name impatiently. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you acting like you care?"
"I'm…I just thought that I would do the decent thing for once and warn you that Dr. Jekyll in there, spoiler alert, has an evil side."
"And you of all people thought that it was a good idea to inform me of it? The same guy who kills and schemes for fun is telling me that someone else might have ulterior motives?"
"Its pretend-to-be-your-stupid-and-less-attractive-youn ger-brother day so I thought that I would give it a go. I'm pretty sure that if Stefan gave you the same advice you would be more than willing to listen."
"Fine. Thank you for the warning. Is there anything else or can I go back inside now?"
"After everything I just told you, are you really stupid enough to think it's safe to be alone when Mr. Hyde makes his appearance?"
Apparently Bonnie wasn't seeing the picture. When did he ever show he was worried…about anything?! Damon played things cool. He didn't get off his ass to warn someone when they were about to step on a giant mouse trap. He pulled up a seat and watched. But with Bonnie, he was practically holding up a huge neon billboard sign that read: you're consorting with Jim Jones 2.0 don't drink the Kool-Aid. Yet she still wanted to Forrest Gump her way to getting her powers back.
"I'll be careful so just leave okay."
"Oh judgey I would love to, but seeing as we can't get our hands on the cure without a witch, I think it's best if I keep an eye on you."
Damon, keeping his eyes on her? Shiver, in the repulsive not happy way. "I can take care of myself Damon," Bonnie reminded him.
"Sure you can. That's why I found you alone with the nutty professor letting him perform voodoo on you."
Bonnie sighed. She would take Damon's "concern" under advisement if every other word or sentence to come out of his mouth wasn't insulting.
"I need to get my magic back."
"And we need you to be alive," he bit out. "So after you," he said and gestured towards the distant parking lot.
Bonnie didn't move a muscle. She stood her ground, staring deep into the vampire's eyes. "I'm not going with you."
"I could throw you over my shoulder and force you to leave or you can act like a big girl and walk to the car," Damon threatened.
Bonnie didn't look amused or fearful, "Or I could painfully pop every single blood vessel in your brain," she replied flippantly.
"You could do that, but when you finally stopped I'd probably be angry and hungry. So hungry that I would march right into that office and make your little friend into an afternoon snack."
"You wouldn't dare," Bonnie's eyes narrowed into slits.
"Try me," Damon challenged. He knew what Bonnie's weakness was. People and their impending death. He might not be able to persuade Bonnie with dulcet words like Stefan to get his way, so he would use her big heart against her. Sure, it was fighting dirty, but that was the way he preferred it. Climbing into the ring with him was like going up against Tyson, and hell yeah he was gonna bite you. And enjoy it. "You know, he probably would be really delicious. I've never drank creepy professor before. Oh wait, there was that one time at USC back in the 60's."
"Fine," Bonnie snapped—exasperated. Dealing with Damon for more than five minutes always led to a headache, and she knew he'd go up and carry out his threat to turn Shane into a meal. It was best she give in now, but this would be the last time he tried to play her. "I'll go to the stupid car with you, but don't think that this is over."
"Actually I was thinking about how hot I look today."
Bonnie rolled her eyes and sighed. A sigh of acquiescence before leading the way to the parked car.
The minute Damon opened the passenger side door to his classic Camaro and the witch grudgingly slid inside, Vaughn stood up from his hiding position.
He might not have learned anything useful like the location of Silas' tomb, but he did learn something of equal value and importance that may come in handy one day. The vampire had leverage over with witch. Vaughn had seen his fair share of witches being subservient to vampires in his hunter career. Fear coupled with the threat of inflicting pain is what kept dozens possibly even hundreds of witches under the undead iron fist of vampires, but that was not exactly the case with the Salvatore vampire and Bennett witch. Vaughn would daresay under the veil of indifference that the two of them exuded when others were present, there was a respect there.
Damon could have easily used force against Bonnie, but he chose to use his words instead. Words that were laced with concern but dressed up as idle threats, just to be clear. Vaughn was certain Damon would no more hurt the witch than the witch would use him as a guinea pig to try out new spells. Well, she might, Vaughn corrected. He would keep watch of those two just to make sure that what he heard and saw tonight was not a fleeting, one-time thing. Damon Salvatore unbeknownst to him cared about Bonnie Bennett, and she him. When the two of them learned that—granted they survived what was coming next—they were sure to set their entire world on fire and watch the place burn. Things in Kansas would never be the same again.
The end.
A?N: Well, there it is folks. We had written us this up WAY before 4x22/4x23 and wanted to post beforehand, and were a little devastated afterwards due to the finale. But thanks to Bamon week, we were revived and decided to post. Let us know what you think. Thank you so much for reading! Love you guys!