Trial + Error = Love
DG32173

Sarah: here's chapter 3! Started the very same day I started and completed chapters 1 and 2. I hope everyone enjoys what I have in store for you guys!

REVIEW REPLIES

jairem: in regards to your review of chapter 1, I agree that it would have been nice if Stefan had been so mature so early in the series. As for your review of chapter 2, as I said in the closing note, I'm sympathizing with Damon's plight for having to go through getting his hopes built up only to have them obliterated in the end. Not that he's going to give up on making her realize that he could very well be the guy she dreams of being with forever. And while I won't detail in this chapter what Elena had thought when she realized what she had let slip to Damon, I will show you what she chose to do about how she had opened her mouth and stuffed her whole leg in it. I do hope you enjoy what I have planned for this chapter.

JMHUW: I will use any excuse to do some Stefan-bashing. Here's the next chapter.

zikae218: if you were trying to say Elena needs to get a clue, I agree completely. She might as well have said that Damon could very well be her dream guy. But then she went and crushed his hopes by pretty much saying that while her dream guy embodies all his good traits, Damon himself is trapped in the 'just friends' category. But don't worry, I won't let things between them stagnate


Chapter 3
Frustration

Damon groans as he sinks down on his usual barstool in The Grill and orders his usual glass of bourbon on the rocks. Alaric looks up from the stool next to him. "What's wrong with you?" the teacher asks mildly.

Damon briefly debates whether he really wants to share his problem with the guy who's dating the aunt of said problem. Then he shrugs, deciding that this is what drinking buddies are for, after all. "It's Elena," he sighs. "I think she's avoiding me again."

"You didn't snap Jeremy's neck again, did you?" Rick asks shrewdly. Given the raven-haired vampire's temper, anything's likely.

"No!" Damon snaps. "I've done nothing more than ruin a five-hundred dollar designer jacket by letting her wear it at the bonfire last Friday because she had been shanghaied into being one of the wet t-shirt contestants by Vampire Barbie. I then politely let her go on and on about the traits she wanted in the man she'd spend her life with, not once voicing the fact that every single one of the traits she listed just-so-happens to be a trait I find myself in possession of now that she's clawed my humanity out of the dark closet I locked it in decades ago."

"I don't know that much about how a woman's mind works, but I think you just hit the nail on the head of why she would be avoiding you," Rick points out, wickedly amused. While he's not an active participant, he knows what the group is up to in concern with Elena and Damon.

"By all means, share the knowledge!" Damon invites sarcastically.

"You just said that the traits she said she wanted in her dream man happen to be traits you are in possession of," Rick points out. "Now, with what I do know about women, they normally wouldn't think anything of blabbing such a thing to their best and closest friend. But in the normal way of things, that best and closest friend happens to be another woman who is like a sister to her. You are a guy, for one thing. For another, she probably wasn't really thinking when she was describing what she was seeking in her dream guy. But, knowing Elena, she probably wrote it all down in her journal that night. Some journal keepers write word-for-word what was said, by whom, and to who. I don't know if Elena's like that or not. But as she was writing about her day, she probably realized exactly what she let slip to you."

"Yeah, and?" Damon asks, not getting the point.

"Well, if those traits she confessed to you she dreams of finding in a man are also traits you possess and she realized that as she wrote in her journal, she'd probably have been mortified about it. Hence the avoidance. When girls are extremely embarrassed about something they did or said around someone, then they tend to avoid said person like the plague," Rick explains. Comprehension dawns over Damon's face. "And until something happens to either ease the embarrassment or else outshine it, the avoidance issue is going to persist."

"So what am I supposed to do?" Damon demands. "She lets voicemail pick up when I call, she doesn't respond to my texts, her window is shut and locked for the first time since I don't know when, and when I do go to the front door, either Jenna says she's not there, which I know damn well is a lie, Jeremy says he's been told to say she's unavailable, or, should she be home alone, she pretends that the whole house is empty even though I can see her car in the drive and I can hear her heartbeat and breathing up in her room! If it weren't for the fact that I don't have a damn good reason to do so, I'd pick the lock on her window and confront her about this."

"Well, you could always try to get her girlfriends to talk some sense into her," Rick suggests. "On this kind of thing, girls assume we guys know nothing and are completely useless. And, to be perfectly honest, most of us are clueless on how to make a woman who's thoroughly embarrassed herself see that it's by no means the end of the world. Besides, after the Masquerade, Bonnie and Caroline seem to have a much kinder view of you in regards to your relationship with Elena. They just might be willing to help you out if for no other reason but to get Elena to stop making herself miserable."

Suddenly, two familiar voices walk through the door of the bar. "Well, the worst they can do is tell me go to hell," Damon sighs, finishing his glass of bourbon. "No time like the present," he continues, pushing himself to his feet.

He strides through the crowded tables to the one the two girls had taken over. He slides in next to Caroline without asking for an invitation. "Damon, what are you doing?" Caroline demands.

"I have something I need to discuss with the two of you and if I slid in next to her, I risk getting a magical migraine just for close proximity," he points out.

"What is it you need to talk about?" Bonnie sighs. The girls had been planning to spy on Damon without making it obvious that they were doing so, but neither had expected him to come right up to them and join in at their table.

"Elena's avoiding me," he says flatly.

"We've noticed," Caroline points out.

"Well, do you know why?" he demands. "Last thing I checked, she had forgiven me for snapping her brother's neck. I even let one of my favorite jackets get ruined by water damage to keep the chill off at the party on Friday."

The girls exchange one of those looks that are utterly inscrutable to the male gender and is only understood by another woman. "Well, we were sworn to secrecy by the girl code," Bonnie says.

"But we might be able to talk her around for you," Caroline adds slowly.

Damon groans, knowing by those two sentences that they want a favor from him in return for doing such a favor for him. "What do you want from me?" he asks.

The girls exchange another of those mysterious 'women only' looks, but this time they're both wearing small smiles. Damon would be worried if it weren't for the fact that those smiles are more relieved than anything else. "We'll try to talk her around on one condition," Bonnie says.

"And that would be?" Damon inquires, trying his damnedest to keep his patience in check. But he is dealing with two of those unknowable, incongruous creatures known as women. Even worse, these two are of the highly hormonal caste in that society known as teenaged girls. Damon's beginning to wonder just what the hell he did to deserve this. Then he remembers that his vampire life was black with sin before Elena appeared in it. Now he's paying for all the rotten things he has done over the years.

"Well, it's simple really," Caroline says.

And 'simple' as defined by a woman is a helluva a lot more complex than any mere man would begin to consider. Which is how Damon finds himself doing strange little errands for the two girls for the remainder of the afternoon and well into the evening. And when those errands finally come to an end, he reluctantly presents himself on the front porch of the house that once belonged to Sheila Bennett and now belongs to her granddaughter. If it weren't for the fact that he has actually spent a good deal of his time in the company of various witches over the years, he'd simply think the girls were going to make a really strange and unusual salad for dinner. Unfortunately, Damon had spent countless hours in the company of witches and warlocks in his quest to find a way to open the tomb that Katherine had never been in until just recently. And in those countless hours, he has come to recognize a wide variety of plants that have potent magical properties. And he has also learned a very great deal about the uses for each and every one of those plants. So he can't even try to fool himself into thinking the girls want to make a salad with the leaves, barks, roots, and mushrooms carefully separated into plastic baggies labeled with his own neat script in the duffel bag hanging from his hand. He mentally runs over a checklist of the plants the girls had him either buy from the store or harvest from the woods. As the primary family of spells and potions these particular specimens are used most regularly in becomes apparent, Damon grimaces.

Not wanting to even begin to consider why the witch would want flora used primarily in love spells, Damon rings the doorbell again and, for good measure, bangs on the door with his fist. If he could, he'd barge in there, deposit the duffle bag on a table or chair, and make haste with his retreat. But there are three big reasons that he can't do just that. First, he had given his word that he would help them with whatever they were going to do this afternoon and evening. He has never gone back on his word before. And as tempting as realizing that the girls plan to meddle with love magic makes breaking his word for the first time, there is still the matter of the other two reasons. The second reason he can't leave the stuff inside and get as far away as possible is because they had promised that in return for his help, they would try to talk some sense into Elena and make her realize that she can't avoid him for the rest of her life. That alone would be worthy of putting himself through any number of ordeals. Even if it weren't one of the reasons he's stuck on this porch waiting to be let in, there is still the matter of the face that he had never been invited into the home of any member of the Bennett family. So he can't slip in, leave the bag of magic supplies, and make haste with the retreat because the stupid force field thing on privately owned homes won't let him in. He has to wait for Bonnie to open the door and verbally invite him in.

And he knows damn well that both girls are in there doing something. He can hear them moving about and the sound of a marker writing on a whiteboard every so often followed by the erasing of said whiteboard. Apparently, whatever it is they plan on cooking up; they don't want him to know the full details of. Which sets him on alert that they are planning some mischief with whatever it is they're going to do with these magical ingredients. With a growl, he bangs on the door. "C'mon, witch, I know you and Vampire Barbie are both in there. I've fulfilled my end of the bargain and brought your stuff, so it's time for you two to hold up your end!" he shouts.

He hears two sighs. "Get in here, Damon, and be careful where you step!" Bonnie snaps.

Damon doesn't bother replying that he's a vampire, thank you, he's instinctively careful about where he puts his foot down. As soon as he opens the front door, he realizes it's a good thing he kept that comment to himself. The living room furniture had been moved out into the front hall and he has to pull off some spectacular contortions to get past it into the living room itself. And even there, he has to take additional care in foot placement because the cleared floor had been swept and mopped to within an inch of its life and he's guessing that as soon as it started drying, the witch had started using white chalk to mark down the intricate and expansive wiccan diagram that covers nearly every inch of floor space and even trails a good foot up the walls.

The only 'safe' area to stand comfortably is in the precise center of the diagram, which is a circle of plain hardwood floor spanning exactly five feet in diameter. This is where the girls are. Bonnie is seated cross-legged in the exact center of that circle with an unlit red candle on either side of her. The candles were carefully chosen to be as closely matched as a chandler can possible make them. In her lap is an all-too-familiar book: Emily's grimiore. And standing behind her as still as only a vampire can is Caroline. In front of the witch is the kind of brazier Damon hasn't laid eyes on since he had been human.

He passes the bag of supplies they had him gather over to Caroline, knowing better than to just drop it down on a floor marked with a Wiccan diagram. "Okay, so here's my end of our bargain," he says. "Now, about your end."

"We aren't quite done with you, Damon," Bonnie says, not looking up from the grimiore in her lap.

"Don't even think about asking me to take part in some witchy spell, particularly not the kind that those supplies signal you're planning on casting. I am not going to take part in any love spells," he snaps.

"I just want a single strand of your hair," Bonnie grits out.

"Do you think I'm an idiot that doesn't have an idea of what a witch can do with just a single strand of someone's hair and the magic she wields?" he exclaims. "In case you have already forgotten, I wasted nearly a century and a half doing my damnedest to get into a tomb because I was chasing a lie. In that time I consulted countless witches and warlocks, including a good portion of your lineage, little witch, and have had to help them cast more spells than you can even hope of learning in return for what little knowledge they had on the matter. And many of those spells required only a single strand of someone's hair. I'm supposed to trust you with that kind of power over me? You don't even like me! Forget this! I'll figure out how to get Elena to talk on my own!" Damon turns on his heel and attempts to begin making his way back out of the diagram. Attempts to, because as soon as he hits the edge of the circle, he runs straight into an invisible wall. He grinds his teeth, keeping his back to the witch. "Let me out, witch. You know as well as I do that I have to give you that hair of my own will for it to be of any use in any witch mojo. I can't be coerced or in any other way forced to part with it because the hair has to be given away freely and without any outside forces making me give it away. So even if you went with the magic and gave me another of those migraines you so love dishing out, it would still nullify any magical property the hair might have."

Bonnie sighs, and Damon's startled to realize it's a sigh of tiredness rather than one of anger. "As much as you and I don't get along, do you honestly think I would be so cold-blooded as to use a strand of your hair to cast a spell to in anyway harm you when I know full well that putting you through a painful experience subsequently puts Elena through an agonizing one?" she asks softly.

Damon frowns and slowly turns to face the girls. "What are you saying?" he asks.

"As much as I don't like it, Elena has put your safety on the same level of her priorities as the safety of her own family. Having her bodily ram into me when I had been lashing out at you for Caroline's transition into a vampire drilled that into me. She knew that I could so easily have turned the spell on her in my haze of fury and by the time I realized what I had done, she'd have been dead. But she didn't care. She risked her life as she has time and again to make sure nothing happened to you. You saw what happened to her when she thought you really had killed her brother in a fit of pique." Damon winces. "She would go through precisely the same anguish and grief if anything happened to take you out of her life. It might even be worse for all we know. She's the only one who knows precisely how important you are to her. She and I are like sisters. We tell each other everything. During those weeks she spent avoiding you after what you did to Jeremy, she came to me more times than I can even begin counting and cried on my shoulder for hours because hating you like she did was also tearing her apart inside. She couldn't stand being apart from you, but she couldn't bring herself to forgive you because she was terrified of what kind of monster that would make her for forgiving the guy who could so easily have murdered her brother just because his ex had messed with his mind and she had subsequently stomped on his heart."

"If she cares so much about me that avoiding me tears her apart, then why the hell is she avoiding me now?" Damon demands.

The girls exchange another of those looks that no man can ever hope to understand. "She would kill us if we told you," Caroline says at last. "And as much as we feel that you deserve to know, it really isn't our place to explain it. But we did give you our word that we'll try to talk some sense into her and we won't go back on it."

"So, just trust that I would never do anything to hurt Elena and that includes hurting you. I might give you the occasional migraine if you cross me, but I won't do anything more than that," Bonnie says. "I can't tell you why I need your hair. But you should know, I happen to have a hair from everyone else in the know. And if I misplace the hair or something happens to it, then I simply ask for one to replace it. Hell, Elena went so far as to grab a pair of scissors and cut off an entire lock. When I told her I didn't need that much, she pointed out that she has always been prone to accidents and mishaps. She said that since you and Stefan entered her life, those accidents and mishaps now tend to have a bit more of an impact than the ones she had before. She informed me that she's giving me a lock of hair because with the way her lucks been running; I'd be coming to her every day for another hair because I had to use the hair I got from her the day before to magically pull her out of trouble. And considering the fact that she's probably right, I accepted it."

Damon frowns as he contemplates what the girls have told him. "Give me your witch's oath that you won't try to harm me in any way using any strands of hair I give you," he finally tells the witch, locking eyes with her. "I'm not going to trust you without it. After all, anything is possible in a fit of blind rage. I know that. You know that. But a witch's oath will make sure you won't be able to try anything against me, no matter how angry you get with me."

Bonnie doesn't even think about it. She knows that in order to pull of the spell the others had talked her into trying; she will need a hair from Damon and a hair from Elena that had to have been given freely by their owners. She can't tell Damon what she intends on doing with the hair, because he would never agree to hand one over if he knew. But he will never agree to hand one over unless he had a way of knowing for sure that she wouldn't be able to use any hair he gave her as a means for tormenting him. "I, Bonnie Bennett, granddaughter of Sheila Bennett and descendant of Emily Bennett, hereby give my witch's oath to Damon Salvatore that I will never use any hair he gives me as a means to cause harm of any form to him," Bonnie says softly, her magic swirling around her briefly as the spell is cast that binds her to her word. Then her magic fades away. "There, I gave you my witch's oath," she says. "You no longer have any reason to deny my request and you should know that I can very easily keep the spell that traps you in this circle going indefinitely. I don't even have to consciously think about it and it only requires a minute portion of my magic. Sure, there are probably an infinite number of ways to break the spell keeping you here, but do you really want to be trapped in this circle while you come up with one that will successfully get you out?"

Damon grimaces. He had not expected the witch to give in so easily. And he knows she's right on both counts. Such a simple barrier spell requires almost no magic to keep going and the only actual thinking that needs to be done is that which summons it and banishes it again. She's right in that there are countless ways to work around such a simple spell, but they would all take time that he doesn't feel like wasting trapped in a five foot circle. "You are damned determined to get your hands on one of my hairs," he growls. "Fine, I'll give you one. But if you use it in some sort of love spell, you had better pray to whatever it is you worship for peace in the afterlife because I will hunt you down and rip you apart for it. And I'll even let Elena hate me for doing so. Don't cross me, witch, because if I have enough motivation, I can block out the pain even your magical migraines put me through to do what I feel needs to be done. You better be damned grateful I haven't had enough motivation before or you wouldn't be breathing right now."

With that grim warning, Damon reaches up and carefully plucks a single hair from his scalp and holds it out. When it becomes apparent that Damon will not move a step closer to them to hand it over, Caroline cautiously approaches to accept the hair on Bonnie's behalf. When she has it safely clasped between her fingers, Damon turns on his heel without another word and makes his way out of the house. After all, the warning about his capabilities and the promise of retribution is enough to make anyone think twice about crossing him. And even Caroline and Bonnie are having serious doubts about how smart this idea had seemed. To their knowledge, Damon has never lied or even exaggerated about his capabilities as a vampire. There is no reason for him to do so just so that they'd think long and hard before using the hair he had handed over in a way that he would not appreciate in the least. That he had known what the supplies they had sent him to fetch are most commonly used for in witchcraft had been both surprising and disconcerting. Even Bonnie had forgotten that Damon had once been deadset on opening the tomb no matter who got in his way, even though the opening of the tomb and the lifting of the seal had cost her grandmother her life. Over the past few months, Damon's become completely and utterly devoted to Elena and the knowledge that same kind of devotion had once been given to a much less deserving party had slipped all their minds. And in forgetting that fact, they had also forgotten that Damon had spent decades hunting down every possible clue that could lead to the opening of the tomb Katherine had never been in. In tracking down a way to break a witch's spell he would have had to consult countless witches and warlocks. And since the fact that witches and warlocks are used by nature as a means to balance the supernatural aspect of the world with the natural ensures that they can't be coerced by supernatural means. Because of this, Damon would have been forced to cultivate favor with the witches and warlocks he sought to consult about his own problem.

The girls hadn't stopped to think that with all the time Damon had spent getting on the good side of countless witches and warlocks, he had to have learned at least a few things about the capabilities of the Wiccan race in general as well as the things they use in their spells and potions. They hadn't stopped to think that Damon just might have the knowledge to not only recognize the things they needed for the spell Bonnie is going to cast but also the knowledge of what uses a witch would make of that specific combination of things.

Bonnie and Caroline exchange nervous looks. Damon made it perfectly clear before he left that if he found out that they used the strand of hair he had given them in any form of love magic, he will not hesitate to enact swift, painful vengeance. "This could easily blow up in all our faces," Bonnie murmurs.

"Should we stop before we reach the point of no return?" Caroline asks.

Bonnie sighs. "Unfortunately, that point had passed us by when we started chalking out the diagram," she replies. "Magical diagrams are not only the starting point of a spell; they are actually a huge part of the spell. As one is drawn out, the witch who will use it infuses a portion of her magic into each and every mark. The bigger the diagram, the more power goes into it to prepare it for being the launching point of the spell. And once I started putting my magic into the diagram as we marked it out, there was no way we could just wash up the chalk dust and move on with our lives. The chalk is actually just a blueprint for how I need to lay my magic down for the spell. Even if we cleaned up all the chalk, the magical diagram will still be in place. Most people just wouldn't be able to see it. If I don't cast the spell the diagram was created for, the magical framework I laid down will start drawing in what witches call natural magic. That is the residual magic that seeps off of every living thing. And even you vampires leave a fine mist of magic wherever you go because it is magic that is keeping you moving and looking like ordinary people. When you feed, it's actually not the blood that you drink that keeps you from desiccating, it's the magical spark of life in the blood that does so. When denied blood of any sort, it's not the lack of blood itself that causes you to become spirits trapped within mummified bodies, it's the lack of that magical spark of life that you lost the ability to produce yourselves in that crucial second step to becoming a vampire, the step where you have to die. Spilling blood taints the spark residing in the spilt blood by releasing the most important part of the magic that resides in all living things, the magic of life itself. But the reason you vampires can still survive on the blood you feed on is because the part of the spark that kept the former owner of the blood moving around is still there." Bonnie grimaces. "I'm getting off topic. Anyways, every living thing has a fine mist of natural magic seeping out of it. Once I put my magic into building the framework that the chalked diagram was a blueprint for, that magic left me. But that little bit of magic can't support the framework for very long by itself. So it does something that's like sending up a distress beacon. The natural magic floating around comes rushing to help. The longer the framework is in place, the brighter that distress beacon, the more natural magic comes rushing in. The problem with that is, after a little while, there becomes a surplus of magic. But that distress beacon doesn't realize this so it keeps getting brighter and more insistent, and more and more magic comes rushing in. If the framework is in place for too long, then you start to have a problem. All that residual magic is building up in one place. The world can't handle that much magic in one place for long. That's why when a witch has to cast a spell she intends to leave in place for a long time, she ties a part of that spell to a powerful cosmic event that is taking place in the same relative time frame. Eclipses, a certain aligning of certain celestial bodies, or, like with the spell that Emily used to seal that tomb full of vampires, even comets. In tying the spell in with a cosmic event that's occurring in the same relative timeframe, that cosmic event is essentially handed the key to the spell, which is what most of the magic in the framework is used as. With so much of the framework to the spell essentially handed over to the cosmic event, the distress beacon I mentioned earlier doesn't need to be sent up because the natural magic that pools in the small area where the remainder of the framework is, is more than enough to support it. The downside of tying a spell in with a cosmic event is that it also limits the effectiveness of the spell in the times when the cosmic event is not taking place. And if the spell is tied to the cosmic event like Emily's spell was tied to the comet, then the effect is locked in place until the next time the cosmic event occurs. And when the cosmic event comes around again, there is going to be hell to pay because the sudden return of the main part of the framework for the spell will be like sending off magical fireworks that, although they can't be scene, can certainly be felt even by humans."

Caroline sighs. "Bonnie, what does this have to do with what we're doing now?" she asks in the all-too-patient way of someone who wants the speaker to get to the point now.

Bonnie sighs. "Basically, if we quit now, the magical framework will still be in place even after we've cleaned everything up. It will start calling in the natural magic for miles around and once there's enough magic in this room to support the framework, the surplus will pretty much start turning us into nice juicy bait for every supernatural entity that is capable of sensing the pooling of magic and comes within range of being able to sense it. And that bait will just become juicier and juicier as time passes, calling in all manner of creatures and many of them are of a variety that not even Katherine would be able to handle on her own. And considering even all of us pooling our resources together couldn't even outwit Katherine, I highly doubt that we'll be able to handle those unwanted guests."

"Oh," Caroline says, understanding dawning on her face. "Why didn't you just say so in the first place?"

Bonnie sighs again, telling herself she has got to remember to keep her explanations as short and to-the-point as possible when dealing with Caroline. Even now that she's a vampire; the blonde is still a bit of an airhead. "Anyways, let's get on with this. The picture Damon painted of his retribution should he find out we are up to what he warned us not to be up to is too damn ugly to contemplate and I want to get this over with so we can clean everything up and pretend this never happened."

With that, she carefully instructs Caroline on how the supplies Damon brought them are to be laid on the brazier in front of her and in what order. She then drills Caroline incessantly on those instructions until both of them are sure the blonde will be reciting those instructions in her sleep tonight and actually be reciting them correctly. Once Caroline has her role down, the girls begin the ritual. And, unfortunately, it is far too late to stop when Bonnie comes to a part of the spell that had suffered water damage. She does her best to translate the mess, not even able to take the time to send up a prayer for help in that much.

When the ritual is finally complete, both girls are exhausted. But they can't call it a night just yet; they still have to clean everything up. It's long past midnight when they finally fall into the sleeping bags they had brought with them. According to Emily's grimiore, the spell will take effect at first light. Bonnie has just enough energy left to send up a prayer that they hadn't screwed it up. But she's asleep before she has a chance to remember that the Wiccan god she had sent the prayer to was actually the trickster god. And he is just the type to take what would ordinarily be a minor mistake and make it into a fiasco of unbelievable proportions.


Sarah: uh-oh … trouble's brewing and now the Wiccan trickster god is going to stick his nose into things. And for those of you who are Wiccan, please forgive me if there is no trickster god as such in your faith. I truly needed a reason for why things are about to take the road of unbelievable, not to mention hilarious, proportions. Everyone, I'd be immensely happy if you left me a review and told me what you think of the story so far! Also, as of next chapter, the rating is going to jump to M, so get prepared.