Elena didn't end up getting to see Damon's ribs until a while after they had been at Elena's house. For a long time, there had been either Jenna or Jeremy lurking in the general vicinity. Damon and Elena were both relieved to find that this time Jenna wasn't having the what-should-I-wear panic attack that she'd had for the date before.
Damon carefully slid his shirt up, trying to touch the sensitive skin with the fabric as little as possible.
Elena had not been prepared for what was right in front of her. She couldn't speak; all she could do was stare at the almost black, baseball sized bruise on one side of Damon's chest.
After several long moments of that, thoughts finally began to form in Elena's head again.
"You should ice it," Elena told him. She wasn't positive if that was right or not, but she figured that it probably couldn't make it any worse.
"Okay," Damon agreed surprisingly easily. He wasn't sure that it would really do anything, but it was an improvement over his complete lack of ideas, he just hoped that this would help at least a little.
"I'll be back in a second," Elena told him before heading downstairs to go grab an ice pack out of the freezer.
"What's that for?" Jenna asked her as Elena turned to leave the kitchen.
"I banged my leg on one of my drawers," Elena lied smoothly, then continued to walk.
When Alaric arrived, Jenna was almost done making dinner, so she asked him to go upstairs and get Elena and Damon.
Elena had left her room to go to the washroom, so when Alaric turned into the open doorway of the room that he had been told was Elena's, he found only Damon; who was lying on Elena's bed with his shirt pulled up and an ice pack on a bruise that was still just showing on his chest.
Damon looked up, surprised to find that the footsteps in the hallway had been Alaric's and not Elena's like he had expected. He lay perfectly still and stared like a deer in the headlights at his history teacher.
"You're not Elena," Damon finally said stupidly.
"No," Alaric agreed as he continued to stare at the bruise, his brain slowly beginning to piece things together.
Alaric knew that Damon had randomly shown up there before and slept over in Jeremy's room for seemingly no real reason. Add that with this giant ass bruise and the things that he'd overheard about Damon's weird behaviour at the school and he had figured it out.
As Damon watched Alaric's face and was beginning to see the confusion disappear and become replaced by realization he would have done anything to reverse it.
"Oh," Alaric finally said. "Your dad..?" He trailed off, not sure how to even word what he was trying to ask.
Damon knew that there was no way to deny it at that point, so he pulled the ice pack off and pulled his shirt down before saying, "Yeah."
"Does anyone else know?" Alaric asked.
"Just Elena," Damon responded. "Not even Stefan."
The look on his face said all that he couldn't and Alaric instantly understood that Damon didn't want him telling anyone. Alaric figured that his best chance of helping Damon or gaining his trust would be to agree to this.
"I won't tell anyone," Alaric simply said.
"Thanks," Damon muttered as he got up off of the bed ignoring the pain as he did so.
When Elena walked out of the washroom to find Alaric standing in the doorway, she hoped that Damon had heard and fixed his shirt before Alaric had reached the room. She walked over there and could instantly sense the awkwardness despite the fact that Damon's shirt was back on.
Her presence instantly ended the conversation even though she knew about it as well. Alaric didn't get the chance to tell Damon that he really should get his ribs looked at, but he figured that he'd get the chance later.
Elena stood as silent as the other two and just looked back and forth between them.
"Jenna sent me to get you guys for dinner," Alaric said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.
"Oh," Elena responded, the awkwardness not fading now that they were speaking.
"Yeah," Alaric said.
Damon was the one who finally broke the awkwardness by asking, "Then shouldn't we go down there?"
"Good idea," Alaric said.
That seemed to unfreeze them all as they headed towards the stairs. As soon as they reached the kitchen to find Jenna and Jeremy there was an instant sense of relief.
Elena still wanted to know what had happened before she had shown up in the room.
Before she even had the chance to ask, Damon leaned over and whispered into her ear, "He knows."
Elena couldn't tell if Damon's calm was a show for the rest of the people in the kitchen who didn't know what he had just told her, or if he was actually that calm about it. She'd have to figure that out after dinner.
Although dinner should have been pleasant with everyone getting along and joking, Elena couldn't quite get herself to fully enjoy it since it seemed to drag on and on when Elena was just hoping that it would end so that she could finally get answers.
She noticed that with the others there, things weren't awkward between Alaric and Damon at all as they joked. But was it all some stupid act to try to pretend that everything was more okay than it really was? Elena's head was beginning to hurt from overanalyzing it all.
When dinner was finally over, Elena volunteered herself and Damon to clean up.
"What do you mean he knows?" Elena whispered once they were alone.
"I mean that he knows," Damon responded. "Like walked in to find me icing the bruise and figured it out knows. He at least said that he wasn't going to tell anyone. And he's not the worst person that could have found out."
Elena could tell that Damon didn't like the idea of more people knowing about it, but he seemed to at least be trying to be okay with it.
When Damon finally went home that night, a while after dinner, his dad instantly threw a beer bottle across the room at him. It hit the wall just next to him and shattered on impact.
"Where the hell were you?" His father growled angrily.
Damon knew that he was in deep trouble as he ignored his father and attempted to reach the stairs before his father could reach him.
"I asked you a question," Guiseppe said, stepping in between Damon and his view of the stairs. "Where the hell have you been?"
"I was at a friend's house," Damon responded deciding that now was not a good time to bring up the fact that he had a girlfriend.
"Since when do you even have friends?" Guiseppe hissed at Damon, who could smell the strong scent of alcohol on his father's breath. Damon was pretty sure that it was stronger than usual.
Damon didn't answer.
"What, are you too stupid to answer a question on the first try?" Guiseppe asked, striking his son across the face with the back of his hand.
"No," Damon responded quietly.
"Really? Because it sure seems like it," Guiseppe said angrily. "You and that stupid brother of yours."
Damon, who had been staring at the floor in an attempt to avoid eye contact and hopefully get the beating over with quickly, looked up suddenly.
"What?" He asked. His voice and body language were suddenly much stronger now that it was Stefan who was being talked about.
"I thought that he was different," Guiseppe said. "Thought that I had at least one good kid, but I was wrong. He's just a little shit like you."
"I swear to god if you laid a hand on him!" Damon threatened angrily, getting into his father's face similarly to the way that he had threatened Tyler in the cafeteria. Damon didn't care less about his own injury at that point, he was too pissed off.
"What are you going to do?" Guiseppe asked. "Besides I wouldn't have had to if he would have answered my question and tell me where the hell you always run off to. I'm not an idiot I know that you two are that close. He knew and he made the mistake of not telling me."
"He didn't know and the only one who was making a mistake was you." Damon said through gritted teeth, all of the hurt and anger from the more than two months of crap that he had taken was all boiling up with his new rage over his dad doing the one thing that he had been trying to prevent that whole time.
Damon punched his father in the face as hard as he could, and then had to clutch at his ribs in pain.
Guiseppe, noticing that, kneed his son roughly in the rib cage.
"Don't you dare act like you're better than me," He warned before removing his knee.
"But I am," Damon said, not prepared to give up. "And Stefan is a hell of a lot better than me."
Damon felt a fist connect with his face hard. He was knocked to the ground, but began to laugh a little knowing that he was getting to his father.
Guiseppe kneed Damon in the face, and then headed out the front door angrily, probably off to some bar.
Damon lay on the floor for a few more minutes waiting for the pain to fade a little. When it didn't, he forced himself up off of the floor and wiped the blood that was coming from his nose with the sleeve of his jacket as he began to head towards the stairs.
After he had made it all of the way up the seemingly endless stairs, he headed over to Stefan's room to find the door closed.
He knocked on it, figuring that it was probably locked anyways and that Stefan would be less angry that way than if he just barged in.
There was no sound from the other side of the door.
"Stefan?" Damon asked.
A few seconds passed and Damon was about to give up and go back to his own room, when the door slowly opened revealing Stefan, who had a dark, swollen black eye as well as a dark bruise along his jaw line.
Damon stood there, staring at his brother's face in shock, freely clutching at his rib cage without having to worry about questions.
Stefan stood equally frozen as he stared at Damon's already bruising face and bloody nose. He noticed the way that Damon was clutching at his chest and knew that it hadn't just been too much breakfast the day before, but that there was something wrong with Damon's ribs.
"Well aren't we pretty looking?" Damon asked with a slight chuckle after a few long seconds.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Stefan asked, not seeming even slightly amused by his brother's joke.
"Because I knew that if I did you would try to do something stupid and this would end up happening," Damon said, gesturing towards his brother's face. "And it's not exactly the kind of thing that you want to tell people about or that you can just casually bring up."
"So the whole time that you've been acting weird..?" Stefan trailed off.
"Yeah," Damon responded. "It was because of him."
Stefan felt a sudden pang of guilt at the realization that the whole time he had been acting so selfish and been so mad at Damon for ignoring him while Damon had been going through all of that alone and been trying to protect him.
"So you've just been keeping it to yourself this whole time?" Stefan asked.
"Mostly," Damon answered. "Elena found out a while after she came back. And Alaric found out a couple of hours ago."
The brothers ended up talking for a long time and Damon told Stefan everything that he had been holding back for the last two months.
Stefan told Damon almost everything, but chose to leave out the part about liking Matt until he could be absolutely sure that Damon was back to normal.
When they went to bed, their dad was still out so they didn't have to deal with him again that night.
The next morning as the boys got ready for school, they noticed that Guiseppe was once again passed out in his chair.
"I'm pretty sure that people are going to ask about our faces," Stefan pointed out.
"Elena can cover it up when we get there," Damon told him. "Besides, if anyone asks then we just got into a fight with each other."
When Elena got out of her car and spotted Stefan and Damon leaning against their car waiting for her, she couldn't believe her eyes.
"What the hell happened to their faces?" Jeremy asked.
"I don't know," Elena said as she got out of the car, unable to rip her eyes away from their faces.
"Stefan knows now," Damon commented when Elena walked over. "But I'm guessing that you probably already figured that out by his face."
Elena nodded as she finally tore her gaze away from the boys' faces to look through her purse for her concealer.
"The amount of people that know doubled yesterday," Damon added as Elena continued to search through her purse, getting more and more frustrated when she couldn't find it.
"Obviously things are getting worse, Damon," Elena said, annoyed by how casually he was acting about all of this. "If they weren't then Stefan wouldn't have been included in it and your ribs wouldn't have been a problem so Alaric wouldn't have found out either."
"I know," Damon admitted.
"And I can't find my damn concealer," Elena said angrily.
"Then we'll just say that we got into a fight with each other when people ask," Damon told her.
Elena didn't like the idea, but she agreed since there wasn't really anything else that she could do at that point.
When it was lunch, Elena was surprised when both Stefan and Damon still showed up at the regular table.
"Whoa," Caroline instantly commented as they sat down. "What happened to you two?"
"We got into a fight," Damon responded simply, not wanting to go into any more fake details than was necessary.
"Well it looks like Stefan won," Matt pointed out.
"Yup," Damon responded in a rough tone, really not caring whether they thought that he was the tougher brother or not at that point.
Everyone stopped asking after that, Damon's tone had been warning enough.
Alaric was surprised when Stefan came into class with his black eye and dark bruise along his jaw line. He had thought that Damon had said that Stefan didn't know about it. Maybe had just been trying to cover for Stefan, but it hadn't seemed like it.
When Damon came in last class, Alaric was amazed by how much worse Damon looked than his brother. That was the boy who hadn't had a single mark on his face when Alaric had seen him the night before.
When the school day was finally over, Damon and Stefan both took their time getting to the car. Even when they got to the car, they hesitated outside of it. Neither of them wanted to go home, especially since their dad had probably regained consciousness by that point. They could tell that it was going to be a very long weekend.
"So," Damon finally spoke up. "We should probably leave at some point."
"Probably," Stefan agreed. Neither sounded very enthusiastic about the idea.
They stood outside of the car in silence for several more minutes as the rest of the parking lot emptied out. Each stood perfectly still, waiting for the other one to make the first move towards the car. Damon had always forced himself to leave right away because of Stefan; it was strange having neither wanting to push the other one. Damon knew that the longer that they waited before they went home, the worse that it would be when they got there, but he still couldn't make himself move to go home and deal with that crap and probably have his dad hit Stefan again. Only that time he would have to see it, which would make it so much worse.
They were still standing like that, watching the other and waiting for one to move, when Alaric walked out of the school. Alaric noticed them and wasn't sure if he should go over there or not, but the condition that they were in after just one night pushed him to go over there and endure the awkwardness if it meant possibly helping them instead of letting them leave for the weekend and having to worry the whole time about whether things were getting worse or not.
Damon noticed the teacher walking over first, and then Stefan noticed his brother's gaze and turned around to spot Alaric just a few steps away.
Alaric stopped in front of them and the three just stood there staring at each other for a few long, long seconds before Alaric finally convinced himself to speak up.
"Look, I feel awkward even coming over here, but I need to say this," Alaric stated. "And I don't know if you're going to pretend that this conversation never happened or not, but if things get bad and you guys have nowhere to go then you can call me to come get you no matter what time it is." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and wrote down his cell phone number on it, then handed it to Damon.
Damon took the paper and stuck it in the pocket of his leather jacket, glad to have it. That meant that they would have somewhere to go other than trying to both sleep over at Elena's with no explanation, one on the couch and one on the floor. Damon didn't like going there every time anyways, and he definitely wouldn't just show up at Elena's in the middle of the night.
Alaric seemed a little surprised that Damon actually took it, but didn't comment as he silently walked away towards his own car.
The interaction with Alaric seemed to have done the trick to unfreeze the two teens as they moved to get into the car.
"What's with you?" Jeremy asked as he watched his sister stare down at her plate, pushing her food around with the fork, but not actually taking a single bite.
Elena didn't answer, too distracted by her worries to notice that she had been spoken to. She only looked up when she felt two sets of eyes on her.
"Huh?" She asked, looking between her aunt and twin trying to figure out why they were looking at her like that.
"I asked what's with you." Jeremy told her.
"Nothing," Elena said quickly.
"Clearly," Jenna said sarcastically.
"I'm just not that hungry," Elena lied.
Both Jeremy and Jenna knew that it wasn't true, that there was something on her mind distracting her. They didn't comment though, hoping that she would bring it up on her own later.
As the Salvatore brothers entered their house, Damon suddenly realized that there was no safe zone just because Stefan was around anymore.
Much to their relief, Guiseppe didn't turn his attention away from the TV when they entered the house. As they walked up the stairs they realized that they were safe at least for the time being.
They ended up both hanging out in Stefan's room, not doing much until their stomachs began to rumble. They knew that soon they were going to have to go downstairs and find something to eat, but they were both afraid that there father was still just as angry from the day before.
Eventually the hunger became enough that they decided to risk it and made their way downstairs to the kitchen. They hadn't crossed paths with Guiseppe yet.
The boys quickly grabbed some leftover takeout from the night before and stuck it in the microwave.
Their father walked into the kitchen and pushed passed them to get to the fridge to grab another drink as the microwave beeped loudly.
Damon grabbed the food out of the microwave as Stefan grabbed them each a plate out of the cupboards and a fork out of the cutlery drawer.
Their father pushed past them once again, fresh drink in hand, and headed back towards the living room without a word.
Both brothers were thrilled as they left the house the next morning for Stefan's football game. To Damon it seemed worse waiting for his dad to snap when he knew that it would happen than having it actually happen. He was sure that it probably wasn't true, but he couldn't stand tip toeing around the house any longer.
It was an away game so it was a fairly decent length drive.
"I bet you'll scare off the other team with your face," Damon commented, then smirked. "But you already did that before it was all bruised."
Stefan rolled his eyes and laughed a little.
Damon didn't think that he'd successfully made his brother laugh for months. He hardly recognized the sound, but he was glad to hear it.
When they arrived at the field, most of the team was already there, including Matt and Tyler. Damon ended up sitting in the stands by himself, not that he really cared. He was more than used to the whole alone thing.
Damon hadn't actually watched one of Stefan's games in a long time; he usually just slept on the bleachers when he had decided that going was better than being at home. That decision had actually been fairly rare since he hadn't wanted things to be normal between him Stefan anymore at the time. As he watched, he was reminded of how much he had used to enjoy the sport back when he had played it with Stefan when he was bored.
Damon's rib was starting to feel a bit better, but still bothering him. He figured that it probably wasn't broken if it was getting better though.
Damon smirked as he watched Tyler get tackled to the ground.
By the time that Damon and Stefan had gotten home from the game, their dad was already at some bar so they once again didn't have to worry about him for the rest of the night unless he came home while they were still up.
Damon ended up laying around for most of the rest of the day, hoping that the rest would make his ribs feel better. He pulled his shirt up to discover that the bruise was beginning to heal a little and wasn't quite as big as he remembered it being.
By the next morning, the bruise was healing even more much to Damon's relief. He texted Elena to tell her that it was starting to go away because he knew that she was more than a little concerned by it and ended up texting her for a few hours. He would have gone over to her house, but he didn't want to be gone hanging out with Elena when his dad finally snapped. It was bad enough that he had been over at her house instead of there to watch out for Stefan when he had been hit the first time.
By Monday morning both of the boy's faces were also beginning to heal, the bruises turning slightly yellowish. Damon's ribs still hurt, but he was able to walk around normally without having to clutch at them or wince with every step.
When Elena saw the brothers in the parking lot, she smiled widely.
"Your faces are getting so much better," She commented.
"I thought that my face was pretty great to begin with," Damon said with a tilted smirk.
Elena rolled her eyes at that, but laughed a little as she responded, "You know what I meant."
At lunch Elena was surprised when Caroline and Klaus walked into the cafeteria together. They were in different grades and she knew for a fact that they hadn't had the same class which meant that they had met at one of their lockers, or there was a small possibility that they had just happened to run into each other in the hallway, but Elena highly doubted that.
Elena suddenly realized that she had been so distracted by everything that was going on with Stefan and Damon and Jenna, that she had no idea what was going on with her other friend's. She had hardly talked to Bonnie and Caroline at all lately. For all she knew, Caroline and Klaus were already dating and she had been too distracted to even know. She decided then that she would try to make an effort to find out what she had missed out on and find out what was going on with them.
Alaric was relieved when he saw that both of the Salvatore boys were healing and didn't seem to have any new bruises. At least none on their faces.
When the day was over, Elena went straight to Caroline's locker.
"Shouldn't you be looking for Damon right now?" Caroline asked when she spotted Elena.
"Actually I came looking for you," Elena told her.
"Why?" Caroline asked, stopping what she was doing and turning to stare into Elena's eyes. "You've hardly said two words to me in the last week, why are you looking for me now? Do you need something from me?"
"No," Elena responded, furrowing her eyebrows. "I just came over here to try and catch up with you since we hadn't talked in so long."
"Really?" Caroline asked. "Because we talked more than this over the phone in a week when you were in Europe. But then you came back and you started getting Damon to come back to the group and act normal. And you know what, good for you. But then you decided to turn into him and just started pushing everyone who wasn't him away, little by little."
"I didn't know that was how you felt," Elena told her.
"I know," Caroline responded. "Because in order to have any idea of how I've felt you'd have to remember that I existed at the very least, even if it didn't require talking to me to figure it out."
With that, Caroline closed the door of her locker, locked the lock, and left a shocked and confused Elena standing there unsure of what to do.
Caroline was already halfway down the hallway when Elena came back to her senses and began to chase after her upset friend.
"Caroline," She called as she got close to her blonde friend.
Caroline stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned around to look at her.
"What?" Caroline asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Look, I want to fix this," Elena told her. "If you're mad because I wasn't paying enough attention to you, then why are you running away as soon as I start talking to you?"
"Because you only came to find me because you didn't have anyone better," Caroline responded.
"Because I'm just the backup to everyone else. I'm sick of it. Why don't you go fix things with Bonnie first? We both know that I'm her backup too."
"Caroline," Elena said, not understanding why her friend would think something like that. "You aren't the backup. Why don't we go do something tonight? Just you and me."
"What, no one else is available?" Caroline asked. "Maybe I already have plans, Elena. You aren't the only one who has plans."
"Well then how about tomorrow?" Elena tried.
"I don't actually have plans!" Caroline argued. "Because in order to have plans you have to have people like you. That's not the point. I don't want to just get one night scheduled in and then pretend that everything's okay the rest of the time just because I got two seconds of attention. I'm not a dog, Elena. I'm a human and you're going to have to do a little better than that."
Elena watched as Caroline huffed away once again, this time she didn't go after the other girl, knowing that there was absolutely no point and nothing that she could say.
Caroline was beyond frustrated and she could feel the tears fighting to get out of her eyes. She kept her head down and walked as fast as she could, hoping to get to her car before she started crying in the middle of the school.
She was almost at the door to outside, when she walked straight into someone who she hadn't seen coming from the connecting hallway. She looked up feeling a few traitorous tears streaking down her cheeks. It was Klaus that she had run into and he was looking down at her concernedly.
"Are you okay, love?" Klaus asked her.
Part of the reason that Caroline was beginning to warm up to him so much was that he was the only person whose first choice she was. When she was around him she felt like she was actually wanted, which she had really needed lately since she had basically lost one of her best friends at the same time as she had lost her dad.
"Perfect," Caroline said as she wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her shirt. "The happiest I've ever been in my life."
"You don't look like it," Klaus commented with a light chuckle.
When Elena spotted Bonnie walk past her, she instantly began to chase after the other girl.
"Hi," Bonnie said after Elena had caught up, seeming surprised that Elena was there.
"Am I a bad person?" Elena asked.
"What?" Bonnie asked. "How would you of all people be a bad person?"
"Because I've been completely ignoring you guys lately," Elena responded. "And now Caroline hates me."
"You've been distracted with your new boyfriend," Bonnie pointed out. "And it's not like we've exactly been talking to you lately either. Caroline just takes everything personally, she'll get over it."
"You think?" Elena asked.
"Definitely, she just has to have her dramatic little temper tantrum first," Bonnie responded.
"So you aren't mad at me?" Elena asked.
"No," Bonnie said. "I missed you, but I'm not mad."
"Do you want to go get something to eat?" Elena asked.
"Sure," Bonnie said. "Do you want to meet at the Grill?"
"Yeah, I just have to drop Jer off first," Elena answered.
Damon and Stefan were once again dreading going home, knowing that at some point their dad would snap.
They stood there for a few long minutes before Damon suddenly opened his car door and said, "Screw going home. We'll go later. I want to do something fun first."
He knew that their dad would probably be pissed and start asking where they had been, but Damon was willing to take the hits for both of them if it meant getting to have some fun and a little brotherly bonding time first.
Stefan's lip twitched up into a smile as he got into the passenger seat, and Damon took this as agreement and began to drive in the opposite direction of their house.
Caroline and Klaus had been sitting in the Mystic Grill, where most of the teens in Mystic Falls went to hang out, for about five minutes before Damon and Stefan walked in.
Of course, Caroline thought to herself, but didn't say it. Instead she just turned her attention back to Klaus and attempted to forget the fact that the Salvatores were even there.
"If I were Elena, I definitely would not have ignored you," He told her. "I don't know what she was thinking."
Caroline smiled a little, and then said, "But if you were Elena, then I doubt that you would even go out with Damon Salvatore in the first place."
"You're right, I'm more of a Stefan man myself," Klaus told her.
Caroline began to laugh, feeling a lot better.
When Elena and Bonnie entered the Mystic Grill, they instantly noticed Caroline and Klaus sitting in a booth together, and Damon and Stefan laughing together as they played pool.
"Great," Elena muttered. "This ought to make Caroline hate me less that I showed up with you and that Damon is already here."
"It's not like you knew that she was going to be here or that Damon would," Bonnie pointed out as they sat down at a table a good distance away from Caroline's booth and the billiards table.
"Yeah, but Caroline will assume that I decided to hang out with everyone else and not her just to spite her because she's the backup to everyone else," Elena pointed out. "Even though I specifically asked her to do something tonight before I asked anyone else and she refused."
"So I'm the backup?" Bonnie said in mock hurt as a grin spread across her face.
Damon took a shot and just narrowly missed getting the six ball in, then looked up and noticed Elena and Bonnie sitting at a table across the restaurant. She was looking back, so he shot her a tilted smile and a wave as Stefan took his turn, getting the nine in easily.
Elena smiled back at him, before turning back to Bonnie.
"I don't know why I defended them against your sister," Caroline stated as she watched Damon and Elena's coupliness even from across the entire restaurant. "Rebekah was right, they are majorly gag-worthy."
"I don't think so," Klaus said, surprising Caroline by giving his honest opinion instead of just agreeing with her. "Just because you're upset with Elena for spending time with him instead of you always, doesn't mean that you think they're any less cute together. The cute factor is just pissing you off more now."
"Well does she have to look so goddamn happy after we just got into a fight?" Caroline asked. "I'm a mess and her mind's on Damon for a change. And Bonnie. Because she just had to show up to hang out with them."
"Well didn't she ask you first?" Klaus asked, confused by Caroline's logic. "That doesn't really make it seem like you're the backup."
"Well yeah," Caroline admitted, Elena had asked if Caroline wanted to do something the two of them so she must have been trying to do that before she had shown up with Bonnie. "But I still was that easy to replace. Just bring Bonnie instead and it's like we never even got into a fight in the first place."
"Well I don't know her as well as you do," Klaus commented. "But Elena doesn't really seem like the kind of girl who pretends that the fight never happened. She's probably over there trying to figure out what to say to you."
"Now that she finally decided that she wants to talk to me," Caroline said, desperately trying to cling onto a reason to remain mad at Elena, no matter how childish it was.
"At least she's making the effort now," Klaus responded. "It sucks that you had to point it out to her before she even realized that there was anything wrong and decided to try and fix it. But at the same time, at least she is trying to fix it instead of ignoring the problem and acting like you're a giant drama queen for thinking that there is one."
"Why do you always have to be right?" Caroline asked.
"Because I'm a genius," Klaus responded. "That and I live with the world's biggest drama queen so I'm very well educated in the ways of teenage girl drama."
"You cheated," Damon complained.
"No, you just don't want to admit that you've completely lost all skill that you used to have," Stefan said with a smirk.
"As if you won when I hardly even had two in. I demand a rematch."
"Why? Because you can't handle the fact that I beat you once?" Stefan asked with his smirk still in place.
"Yeah, you keep that look on your face," Damon said. "I mean if that one win really makes you feel that good about yourself, then good for you."
"You're not going to make me feel bad about being happy that I won," Stefan told his brother. "No matter how hard you try."
"Even if I beat you six times in a row now?" Damon asked.
"I'd like to see you try," Stefan responded.
"You will," Damon said. "And you'll see me succeed and then I'll see you cry like a little girl after losing."
"Or, you'll lose again and run away refusing to play anymore," Stefan responded.
Ten minutes later, Stefan had already defeated Damon once again and by just as wide of a margin.
Damon had lost all of his skill when he had stopped playing entirely for two months while Stefan had still continued to play with Matt or Jeremy sometimes.
"So do you dare get beat again or are you going to go sulk somewhere?" Stefan asked him.
"I think that I'm done for the day," Damon answered. "Any more losses and I can't pretend that it was a total fluke."
"And you can convince yourself of that now?" Stefan asked as they put their cues away.
"Shut up," Damon said as he began to head over to Elena and Bonnie's table with Stefan following shortly behind.
Damon sat down next to Elena and grabbed a fry off her plate, then popped it into his mouth. Stefan sat across from him, next to Bonnie. There was still an open seat on the other side of each of the brothers.
"So what's with them?" Damon asked, gesturing towards Caroline and Klaus who had been sitting at a booth together since before they had arrived there. "Are they like together now, or..?"
Elena had no idea, so she turned to Bonnie.
"They aren't," Bonnie pointed out. "Unless they got together since lunch time today."
"It looks like a possibility," Elena commented, before sticking another fry into her mouth.
"I don't know," Bonnie responded. "There's always the possibility that she's just using him because he gives her attention and she's mad at you."
"She's mad at you?" Damon asked, turning to look at his girlfriend in confusion.
"Yeah," Elena responded. "She's annoyed because I spend too much time with you and not enough time with her. So she's kind of mad at you too, but not as much as she is at me."
"So does that mean that she's kind of mad at Alaric too?" Damon asked.
Elena rolled her eyes, "I doubt it. I don't even think that she knows how the Jenna and Alaric set up even went because I've been a complete jerk ignoring her."
"No," Stefan pointed out. "Damon was a complete jerk ignoring me, you were just distracted."
"He has a point," Damon agreed, much to Bonnie's surprise.
"I think that if she was just trying to think of something to say to me that she would come over here at some point and said something," Caroline pointed out as she watched the group of four at the farthest away table. "Instead she's just sitting there with all of the people that she actually likes."
"Then why don't you go over there and talk to her?" Klaus asked.
"Because I'm mad at her for barely talking to me all week," Caroline responded.
"Did you even try to talk to her at all?" Klaus asked. "Or have you just been ignoring her the whole time while she was ignoring you?"
Caroline sat there in a stunned silence. She hadn't realized that she had put such little effort into getting Elena's attention; she had just immediately snubbed her.
"Well what am I supposed to say if I go over there?" Caroline asked.
"Does it really matter?" Klaus asked. "She'll probably just be glad that you aren't mad at her anymore."
Caroline debated it for a few seconds, and then moved to get up.
"Aren't you coming?" She asked when she noticed that Klaus hadn't moved from his seat.
"I just figured that I was the backup to vent to, but now that you're going back to the people that you actually like you wouldn't want me around anymore," Klaus responded with a smirk as he got up.
"Cute," Caroline said sarcastically.
"Caroline Forbes just called me cute," Klaus said with a smirk.
"Shut up," Caroline said with a laugh as she playfully hit him in the chest.
They headed over to the other table before Caroline could decide to wimp out and change her mind.
When Elena noticed that Caroline and Klaus appeared to be walking over, or maybe just walking out past their table, she instantly went silent. The others followed her gaze and also went quiet once they saw the other two headed over there.
When Caroline stopped right in front of their table, they looked up at her expectantly, waiting for her to say something.
Caroline's mind went blank and she wanted to turn around and run away. They were all waiting for her to speak, but she had no idea what to say and if she didn't say something soon then she was going to look like a complete idiot.
Klaus seemed to notice her hesitation and spoke up for her, "Is there room for two more?"
"Sure," Elena responded, knowing that everyone was waiting for her to answer since she was the one that was involved in the fight.
Klaus sat down next to Damon and Caroline hesitated for a half second before she followed suit and sat down across from him and next to Stefan.
There was an awkward silence since both tables had been talking about the people at the other one before they had merged so they couldn't pick up the conversation where they had left off. As the silence bore on, Caroline began to feel that she wasn't really welcome there and was debating whether she should try to say something to make up or whether she should just get up and leave when the silence was finally broken.
"So I never did hear how Jenna's date with Alaric went," Bonnie said to Elena, remembering the last conversation that they'd had before Caroline had come over that hadn't been revolving entirely around her.
"Neither did I," Caroline spoke up, glad that Bonnie hadn't heard it either. At least Elena hadn't just been ignoring her.
"Jenna's two dates with Alaric," Damon corrected.
"You should have seen how he showed up for the first one," Elena said with a laugh, then began to tell the story glad that they were able to function as a group once again with the awkwardness seeming to have disappeared entirely. Even Klaus was making jokes and being included in the conversation as much as the others.
A few hours later the group finally decided that they'd better get home since many of them had homework to do.
As Caroline watched Damon kiss Elena goodbye before he left, she knew that Klaus had been right. She couldn't help herself from smiling; they were too damn cute even if Caroline didn't want to admit it sometimes.
Caroline hugged Klaus goodbye before he left and Klaus left with a big smirk on his face.
When Stefan and Damon walked into their house, their dad was nowhere to be found. That was until they reached the stairs, which he had been sitting at the bottom of waiting for them.
"Which one of you wants to tell me why I am never allowed to know where my own sons are?" He snarled, looking back and forth between the two teenagers.
"Maybe because you're a horrible father," Damon muttered. He normally would have never had the guts to say that despite its truth, but he had gained the courage since he knew that he had to keep as much of the focus off of Stefan as possible.
"Or maybe it's because you're a horrible kid and you brainwashed your brother into being just like you," Guiseppe responded. "Do you think that I'm a horrible father, Stefan?"
Stefan hadn't yet learned how bad of an idea it was to talk back, and despite his fear he wasn't going to let his brother take all of the heat for him like he had been for months.
"Yes," Stefan responded. "Do you really think that you're a good father? Because you won't be winning any father of the year awards any time soon. They'd have to kill off most of the dad's in the world before you'd even have the slightest chance of winning."
Dammit Stefan, Damon thought to himself. He couldn't just shut his mouth and let Damon take all the hits, including the extra ones that he was adding with his back talk. Instead Stefan had to make sure that they would both get hit extra amounts and that there would be nothing that Damon could do about it. He was still going to try to make himself get all of the beating anyways, so he stepped in front of Stefan as their father got up from where he was sitting on top of the stairs.
"Move," Guiseppe ordered.
Damon stood still.
"I said move!" Their father yelled.
A slight smirk formed on Damon's face as he took one step closer to his father, still blocking him from reaching Stefan.
"Better?" He asked arrogantly.
Before Damon knew what had happened, he was on the floor and the side of his face was burning. As he rolled to get up, he saw his father punch Stefan in the gut hard enough to send him stumbling back a few feet.
"Leave him alone," Damon said, stepping in between once again.
"Why don't you mind your own business?" Guiseppe asked. "And stay out of the way, clearly he needs a lesson a lot more than you do right now."
Damon stood his ground and sternly repeated, "Leave. Him. Alone."
Guiseppe's stepped forward and tried to push Damon aside, but Damon resisted with all of the strength and adrenaline he had. Guiseppe frowned when his son didn't budge even half an inch. He decided to take a different strategy and punched Damon in the gut, which normally sent him falling to the ground.
Damon began to fall forward, but caught himself immediately. He clutched at his stomach, but didn't move. Instead he looked up and held threatening eye contact with his father.
Stefan just sat on the floor and watched, flinching each time that Damon was hit, but unable to make himself get up or do anything. He couldn't think of any possible solution that would make the situation any better.
Guiseppe hit Damon in the chest with all of his strength, causing Damon to take a half step backwards, but he didn't so much as flinch as he held eye contact.
"If you don't move, then you two can sleep outside tonight," Guiseppe snarled at him.
"Fine," Damon said, taking a step forward so that his face was just inches away from his father's. "It's better than sleeping in the same house as you. Stefan, we're going." Stefan stood up from the ground seeming confused. "Go start the car."
He grabbed his keys out of his pocket and threw them over his shoulder. Stefan caught them and began to hesitantly walk towards the door. Once Damon heard the door close behind his brother he backed away two steps, and then turned around to face the door as he headed towards it.
"If you two dare come back here again," Guiseppe threatened. "You'll wish that you had just let me hit him. You'll wish that you could go back to the way things were before you became the smartass who thought that he was tougher than me."
Damon ignored the words as he headed out the front door without so much as a glance back. He got into the driver's seat of the car and backed out of the driveway.
Once they were a few streets away, Damon pulled over and grabbed his phone out of his jeans pocket and the slip of paper that Alaric had given him the other day out of his jacket.
The only thing that had been keeping him in that hellhole of a house had been Stefan. He hadn't wanted to leave Stefan there alone or tell him why they had to leave. The one other contributor had been that he hadn't had anywhere to go. But now Damon didn't have to try to hide it from Stefan anymore and he couldn't protect him well enough while living in that house. He figured that it would be well worth the possible awkwardness to call Alaric, who was actually a really nice guy, and stay over there at least for one night, than to stay at their own house for any longer.
He quickly dialed the number, then hit talk and listened to the ringing.
Alaric picked up after the third ring, "Hello?"
"It's Damon, is that offer still good?"
A/N: Please read and review! Look at me posting a second chapter today that's over 8k. I feel all impressive and stuff. I hope that you liked the update and thank you so much for reading.
Of course an extra special uber thanks goes out to my amazing reviewers of the last chapter: VervainLacedBourbon, Barbara SGB, Jazzmie01, Cherriesandapples, scarlett2112, vamomoftwins, DrawingMyHeartOut, and BW4eva :D