Chapter 14

After a morning that felt like something out of a bad soap opera, with all of the dramatic family revelations, Damon and Enzo decided to spend the rest of their day drowning their sorrows and playing pool and darts at a new bar in Mystic Falls. Evening was approaching and they had managed not to talk about Lily for the last 2 hours.

"Let me ask you something," Enzo said to Damon.

"Fire away," Damon replied throwing a dart at the dartboard.

"Do you believe that Lily deserved to be abused by Giuseppe?" Enzo asked him.

Damon looked at him like he was a crazy person. Then again, it probably was a crazy question to ask an individual who had killed people out of boredom on more than one occasion in his existence.

Damon took a gulp of beer before considering his answer. "No," he said.

Enzo was genuinely surprised and relieved. Since Damon hated Lily so much he'd expected a slightly different answer.

Damon explained his response. "You and I both know that back then a woman couldn't just leave her husband. She had nowhere to go. Especially since her parents died not that long after she married Giuseppe." Damon took another gulp of beer. "But it doesn't change the fact that she didn't come back. Giuseppe was always a self-absorbed, insensitive bastard... and I can accept that... But Lily chose not to love us anymore. So, in the bad parenting stakes, I'd say she had him beat."

Enzo drank some of his beer too. "He really never hit you and Stefan," Enzo asked, with regard to Giuseppe's abusive tendencies.

"No," Damon answered. "He didn't have to. He was intimidating... controlling... everybody knew not to mess with him."

"Cold?" Enzo assumed.

"In a way. He was powerful. People were drawn to him, probably out of some twisted admiration. He was everybody's buddy. And he was a show off. He had to prove that he had the perfect family. Handsome, intelligent sons. Beautiful, elegant wife. Whenever he was affectionate with us or Lily it was usually just for show. He bought us things, took us out... we had treats... Lily fell for it, so did Stefan... but I knew he was just trying to impress the people on the outside. More than anything he was overbearing with me and Stefan. He wanted us to make him proud. Stefan was the obediant one... me... not so much. I was the disappointment. But I knew how far I could push him."

A bitter expression came across Damon's face. He'd obviously had a deeply frustrating relationship with his father, despising the man, but not being able to fight back in any way.

"The only time I ever stood up to him was the day after Lily left." Damon continued. "I knew what he did to her and I confronted him. He tried to manipulate me into believing she said she was gonna leave him, and that he lost his temper so she left anyway, but I wasn't stupid. I thought she was still alive, that he got sick of her and sent her away."

"How did Julian come into the picture?" Enzo asked after Damon was silent for a whiile.

"I'm not sure," Damon said. "But he was just another narcissist."

Enzo knew that for certain. Julian loved Valerie because she worshipped the ground he walked on; she thought he was her saviour, and that's how he was able to manipulate her into disliking Enzo.

"Do you think he really loves Lily?" Enzo wasn't sure what the reality of that situation was.

"Maybe," Damon said. "But he's a sly bastard. Patient with it too. He wants everything his own way, and he'll do whatever it takes to get it. After he disappeared there were more and more rumours. He'd conned people out of money, he was into gambling... stealing. There was even a theory that he manipulated a couple of women into murdering their rich husbands, then he ran off with the money and left the widows behind."

"You're being serious?" Enzo said wide eyed.

"100%," Damon said. "I wouldn't put it past him."

Enzo wouldn't put it past him either. A master manipulator. No wonder Lily fell for him. Especially after such a shitty marriage.

"Did you know Giuseppe was abusing Lily the whole time it was happening?" Enzo questioned, changing the direction of the conversation.

"Not until the day she left?" Damon answered.

"How did you not know...?" Enzo began.

"Because Giuseppe was one clever bastard," Damon told him. "He couldn't have his perfect, beautiful wife walking around with bruises on her face. He made sure he hit her in places noone would see, until the day he almost killed her. We knew she was scared of him, but we never even heard them argue. I don't think she'd even try to speak back to him anyway. The house was so big, he had plenty of space to take her wherever he wanted and..." he said, stopping before he could finish his sentence.

For the first time Damon began to show a little emotion, as if he felt sorry for his mother. And why not? No woman deserved to be beaten black and blue by her husband like that. Enzo watched him, waiting patiently to hear what else he had to say. Was his hatred for Lily starting to thaw?

Damon threw a dart so hard at the board the wall shook.

"She loved us at some point in our lives and Giuseppe broke her down. But she let her hatred for him destroy that love and I'll never forgive her for that," Damon said coldly.

#

After finding some seats at the bar and downing several more shots Damon calmed down. The possible thaw in his hatred for Lily, was never going to happen. So for now that subject was closed.

"So you gonna fill me in on what the deal is with you and Bonnie?" Damon asked, back to his usual nosy self.

"No," Enzo told him firmly.

"Aw, come on. You can't live under my roof and get up to hanky panky without clueing me in on the situation," Damon persisted.

Enzo took a shot of Bourbon and rolled his eyes. "There's nothing to tell."

"That's not the way it looks," Damon told him.

Enzo looked at Damon silently for a few moments.

"We're trying not to go there," Enzo finally said referring to the sexual tension between him and Bonnie. "Plus she's beyond pissed off with me now anyway."

Bonnie had not been impressed when Enzo admitted that he found out Lily was in Mystic Falls to find one of the Heretics on the same night that Bonnie and Jeremy had captured him. He'd seen Lily 3 times since she'd arrived in Mystic Falls. The first time they couldn't talk and arranged to meet up. The second time was the night he first met Bonnie. And right now, Bonnie was giving him the cold shoulder.

"Ok... I see where you're going with this," Damon said referring to Enzo's situation with Bonnie. "The longer you try and hold out, the better it'll be when it eventually does happen. And you know that angry sex is the best sex right?" he added with a smirk.

Enzo gave him a look that said, where do you come up with this shit? He shook his head at Damon and snickered before saying, "More like we hold out permanently, she leaves and then we both just get over it."

Damon laughed as if Enzo had told him the funniest joke he'd heard in months. Enzo wasn't amused.

"Ohhhkaay... Been there, tried that," Damon said to him, thinking back to his experience with Elena. "Let me give you some advice," Damon began. "Now that Bon Bon's back in Mystic Falls she's already feeling connected to her old life. Do you really believe that after all this is over she's just gonna leave here for good?" he asked Enzo. "So unless you decide to leave instead you won't be able to avoid each other. Do you really think you'll be able to keep fighting against what you want... indefinitely?"

Enzo considered Damon's words carefully. And it made him feel more anxious than he had been about anything in his life.

#

It was after midnight when Enzo and Damon returned to the Boarding House from the bar. Enzo went to his room and tried to use his vamp hearing to listen in on Bonnie but he heard nothing. He knocked on her door and then looked inside her room, but she definitely wasn't there.

He was annoyed with her too. He probably shouldn't have kept his meeting with Lily a secret or what he knew about Terina, but he was still in the middle of things and trying to decide what the best thing was to do. Whatever decisions he made affected everyone. Including himself. And where was his support?

After an hour he began to get worried. Bonnie wouldn't be crazy enough to go looking for the Heretics alone, would she? Or even try to find the Armory to get to Abby? Instead of driving himself crazy he went into the living room and played the guitar alone.

A/N: Stefan has no history with Valerie in this fic, they have never met.