Song: Muse – "Madness"
I don't even like this song honestly but in my mind's eye or whatever it's what plays during this chapter so deal with it
Don't hate me for how short this one is (to be honest it should probably just have been appended to the previous chapter), but I realized it's been almost two weeks since I updated and I didn't want anyone to think I'd forgotten about it. I'll have a much longer chapter up within the next few days or so. Thanks so much for reading, as always.
It isn't until he sits down in the front seat of the Camaro and goes to put the key in the ignition that he realizes he doesn't actually have the keys. He could swear he had them in his pocket when he first stepped outside, but whatever. It's still the middle of the night; there's no rush.
He cautiously turns the front door handle and slowly eases his way inside, trying to be as close to silent as possible. But it doesn't matter, anyway, because he immediately sees that all the lights are on, and Bonnie and Enzo are sitting at the table fully dressed and wide awake as if it isn't two in the morning. He looks at the stove clock to make sure, but no, he's not crazy, it's still 2:09.
"What the hell are you two doing up?" he asks indignantly.
"We could ask the same of you," Enzo replies nonchalantly, his eyes not budging from the newspaper.
"I was just, uh, getting some air." He gestures awkwardly to the half-open door behind him, then pushes it closed. "Is that a crime in the love hut?"
"Some air, hmm?" Bonnie holds up his keyring tauntingly, smiling a saccharine fake-sweet smile. "Sure you weren't looking for these?"
He glares at her, sets his jaw. "No. Not at all. But now that you mention it, this place is a little stuffy for my liking. I think I might jet." In a flash, he snatches the jangling keys from her hand and zips back to the door, but before he can cover the full distance he's blocked by Enzo, who squares up and stares him down, looking at him a way he's never looked at him before, not the usual unbearable mixture of compassion, hope, sadness, and disappointment, no, something different.
And his damn heart won't stop pounding long enough to figure it out.
"You're not going anywhere, Damon. Not without us." Enzo doesn't move, doesn't even blink.
"Because that's what you want, isn't it?" Bonnie's voice suddenly being right behind his ear sends chills down his neck. "You try to run away because you want to be stopped. Well, this is us stopping you."
"I..." Why is he such an ineloquent mess right now? What the fuck is happening? Is he really just this tired? "You two are crazy. What is this, some kinda cabin fever?"
"Oh, for the longest time you convinced both of us we were crazy, Damon." Bonnie slinks past him to stand next to Enzo, her gaze similarly indefinable. "That we were idiots for believing it could ever be anything more. That I was reading too much into the night that changed everything for me."
"Or that I was an idealistic fool for—" Enzo's steeled expression falters a bit, then regains its resoluteness. "For wanting what I want." He takes a step forward. "No longer."
He's fully aware of what's happening right now, knows what it means when Enzo's face moves toward his, what it means when time itself starts to slow down and his whole body feels like lava, and yet he doesn't do anything to prevent it, just stays still as their lips first brush together, tentative at first and then much more assured, their bodies melting together, and when Enzo pulls away there's Bonnie, the warmth of the lights shining in her eyes as she too leans in. Kissing her feels at once impossibly familiar and like nothing he's ever known, and as she grabs one of his hands and Enzo the other, he
"Earth to Damon! Hello!"
Bonnie waves exaggeratedly as his brow furrows with the irritation of waking. He squints at her. "What?"
"Get your lazy ass up. You're taking up the whole couch and we have to leave soon. You know, to kill a bunch of vampires possessed by even more evil vampires so I can like, not die?"
Damon looks like he's close to fully conscious at this point, and his expression has changed from dazed and bewildered to that of a deer staring down approaching headlights as he looks from Bonnie to Enzo and then back to Bonnie again. "Yeah, uh, I remember."
"Well we don't have much longer until the effects of the pills wear off and they can find me again." Bonnie eyes him quizzically. "So let's get a move on, yeah?"
"Right. Absolutely. I'll go get ready." He all but sprints across the living room and out the door, apparently headed for the Camaro.
Bonnie looks at Enzo, who's been watching all of this with palpable amusement, with suspicion. "I thought we agreed giving him a dream would be coercive," she whispers.
"We did," Enzo says, still grinning. He holds his hands up. "I didn't do anything, I swear."
Bonnie narrows her eyes and looks out the window at Damon as he takes twice the time necessary to get a change of clothes and a bag of supplies out of the trunk. "Well then why the hell is he acting like this?"
Enzo shrugs, goes back to making breakfast. "Maybe he didn't need any extra help on the sex dream front."
"Yeah, right."
"You saw the way he was bloody gaping at us! That was a 'I just shagged the both of you in dreamland and now that I'm awake I don't know how I feel about it' look if I've ever seen one."
"First of all, shhh," Bonnie hisses, glancing toward the driveway again, where Damon is now meticulously taking inventory of all the stakes and other weapons he brought. "And second of all, you're nuts. He's just as oblivious and indifferent as he's always been."
Enzo speeds over to stand behind Bonnie, his next words spoken inches from her ear as he reaches his arms around her and runs his hands down her front, growling with approval as he feels her shiver against him. "Believe what you want, love. My theory is that this will be much easier than we thought."