It had hit Suzanne a few weeks ago that the weirdest aspect of her friendship with Damon was how not weird it was.
Sure, she enjoyed the updates concerning his plan to get Katherine back and how his little brother was reacting to his presence. There were dinners crashed, up-coming balls, and the like. It was sort of progressing like some guilty-pleasure show on the CW, and Suzanne sometimes had to remind herself that the names he mentioned were actual people.
But when they weren't talking about the clone/vampire/witch/tomb bullshit going down a few towns over from where Suzanne lived, they functioned together the same way Suzanne assumed normal people did.
Normal people with skewed moral compasses and possible high-functioning alcoholism, but that was beside the point.
The two of them were finishing up dinner at an Italian restaurant on the edge of Mystic Falls, and arguing over the check. But not in the way that one might think.
"Come on, we should pay. I liked our waiter! He was a nice elderly guy and didn't make fun of me when I couldn't pronounce anything correctly, unlike you. He's the one that will get in trouble if we compel him not to charge us. Just use some of the cash you stole anyway."
Damon pouted and rolled his eyes, evidently not about to fight her on the subject. With an overdramatic sigh he slapped a few twenties on the table as they stood and left. Suzanne noted that he had given an enormous tip and leaned over to him, giving a smacking kiss to his cheek that left a smear of red lipstick on his skin.
"Gross, Suze. You have cooties."
Damon was dramatically pawing at his face and looking disgusted. Suzanne snickered under her breath and lightly hip checked him before she said, "At least its not syphilis. Do tell – what old-school venereal diseases did have before your vampirism cured them?"
Damon snorted but when he opened his mouth to speak, Suzanne was struck with a truly brilliant idea.
"Damon. Damon. What if your blood can stop an allergic reaction?"
It took a minute for him to get it, but the awed look that covered his face when realization hit mirrored her own.
"You are brilliant. I have no idea if it can, but we can grab someone else with a deathly allergy and see if it works. Suze – are you ready to potentially cross something off of your bucket list?"
The both of them had stopped walking on the way to Damon's car and Suzanne was nearly hopping up and down with excitement when she grabbed his hands and let out an excited shriek.
"I might get to try a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup!"
Damon stood outside the door of Suze's apartment, trying to figure out what he should do when he entered. She had called him at two in the morning and asked him to just talk to her and stay on the phone. But after a little bit of prodding Damon found out that she'd had a pretty bad nightmare that had caused a panic attack.
Panic attacks weren't really things that were talked about or even labeled as such when he was growing up. If someone had one back then it was chalked up to hysteria. But Damon had been there first hand when Suze had one and knew that it wasn't at all a case of simple hyperventilation. After the one he had witnessed she'd been off the rest of the day. Detached.
So, being the knight in shining armor he was, he'd driven over to her place and was now trying to work out the best way to comfort her.
Caffeine? Suze was a nightmare without it in the morning, but she probably shouldn't be up too long when she had work the next– fuck it. He was making her take work off tomorrow. He'd compelled her manager a while back to switch her shifts whenever he called.
Not that she knew that. Still, it would come in handy tonight.
Booze was probably the best choice to make her spew feelings all over him. Except she was an itty bitty human, so any damage to her liver was woefully permanent. Having a human for a best friend was much more difficult than he had initially thought it would be.
To be honest though, Damon had never planned that this would go so far. Suze was awesome, obviously, but when they had only just become friends he hadn't known that yet. She'd been the entertaining and slightly weird girl he had chosen at random to talk about his plans with.
And Damon had never planned on turning his humanity back on by accident. While driving in the car Suze had turned to him and pointed with a wide smile for him to take over singing the male part of a song she'd been blasting. Just like that, he realized he had flipped his switch without noticing all because of the bitchy, petulant, antisocial woman that he loved and who loved him back.
Of course he'd gone out that night and killed a handful of people after having a tiny existential crisis, but discovered to his delight that bloodshed and chaos was still just as fun with his switch turned firmly 'on'.
And now here he was, standing outside Suze's apartment at two thirty in the morning with a bottle of the terrible vodka she loved and an enormous bag of cherries, because she had really weird comfort food cravings and he could tell over the phone that she was pretty messed up.
The door swung open after only two knocks, and Damon knew right away that coming over had been the right decision. She looked like shit.
"You look like shit."
Suze burst out laughing, but the laughter turned to tears. Not the loud, choking sobs that were always in movies. Her breathing was a bit heavier and tears were filling her eyes. The thing was, Suze didn't cry – she got angry. So Damon knew that she had been downplaying her nightmare.
Damon quickly walked into the kitchen and put down the stuff he'd brought before he drew her into a hug, which she slumped into. After a minute of rubbing her back they separated and Suze roughly wiped the tears off of her face, clearing her throat at the same time.
"Sorry. And you're the best."
Damon smirked at that and raised both of his eyebrows before he responded in a cocky voice, "Oh believe me, I know."
His answer had her laughing again and rolling her eyes, so he counted it as a win. When she stopped laughing she sighed out lowly and hopped onto the counter behind her, swinging her legs back and forth and looking strangely young.
"You know me, I don't get freaked out very easily. Case and point, I can see bloodstains on your collar and my only concern is for your v-neck. But I had a really bad dream about Scott, so I kind of freaked the fuck out."
Damon nodded and wandered over to her, hopping up next to her before nudging her with his shoulder.
"Want to tell me about it?"
Suze shrugged but started to vent almost immediately, clearly needing someone to tell it to.
"To give you some background info, Scotty had cancer when we were teenagers. Acute myeloid leukemia. It was bad, really bad. And I didn't find out until I got back from circus camp over the summer because my parents didn't want me to worry, but by then he looked really sick so it was probably worse. You already know that we were both adopted, and it made me feel really helpless that I didn't even have whatever he would need to be donated or transplanted."
Suze's voice wasn't quite sad, it was just quiet. Tired. But he nodded along and let her finish.
"He's been in remission for eight years. But I had a dream that it was back. I always get scared it will come back, but this one was really realistic. So I just wanted someone to talk to. You didn't have to come over."
Damon reached for her hand and laced their fingers together, not speaking. He couldn't really say anything to make her feel better, because it wasn't like he could do anything. So he decided that distraction and redirection were the way to go.
"You're my best friend. I couldn't just let you wither away with sadness when we could be going out and having a blast. Let's get wasted and see where the night takes us!"
Suze snorted but a smile started covering her face, so he knew she would eventually agree.
"It's a Tuesday, and I have work at nine."
"Not anymore you don't. Your manager switched your shifts. Thank me later."
Suze's laughter was unattractive – there was no way to argue against it. She snorted and practically cackled, while sometimes sounding like an elderly dog barking. But right now, it sounded like the best thing in the world to Damon.
Suzanne was hungover. So very, very hungover. But her thoughts weren't focused on that. All she could do was stare at the body on her living room floor.
Damon stood next to her silently. He had wandered in complaining about not remembering the end of their night, but when he had seen what she was looking at he also stopped where he stood and also gone quiet.
The carpet was stained just beside the body and in the back of her mind Suzanne wondered if she had any carpet cleaner. The eyes were lightly closed, and there was one less limb than there should be attached to its torso. The gender was impossible to tell.
"Damon, this is bad."
Damon nodded in response to her whisper and sounded fairly incredulous when he replied, "We've done a lot of weird shit, and I've done a lot of bad things, but this seems worse than usual."
Suzanne was trying not to panic, but her own voice went high pitched and frantic when she said, "This is worse than usual! I am going to the worst circle of hell. I literally can't remember how this happened, and I don't think I want to remember how this happened."
Damon cocked his head to the side and walked over to it, crouching next to it and sizing it up.
"It's not too bad when you really look at it. Sort of cute."
Suzanne threw her hands up in exasperation before finally yelling back, "I don't care how cute it is! I can't afford another dog! Damon, we stole a fucking three legged puppy!"
At the sound of her voice, the puppy in question bolted upward, apparently wide awake. It's tongue was sticking out and it's tail immediately began wagging.
Damon reached forward and patted its head. When the dog began gnawing on his fingers, he nodded decisively as if making up his mind.
"I like it. Boy or girl, I vote we name it Killer."
Suzanne really didn't understand how this was her life.
Hey everyone! To address a few things:
This will not ever be Suzanne/Damon in a romantic relationship.
Suzanne will have a pairing, and Damon will as well. Hint for Damon's : a snarky young adult who will be able to keep up with Damon and Suzanne when they go out and do shots.
As always, please review and let me know what you think. Thanks, lovelies xx