The night before at the Salvatore boarding house:

Ordinarily, when his brother fell off the wagon, Damon made it his business to try to minimize the damage. But with hordes of demons ravaging the locals, he was forced to occasionally leave Stefan to his own devices. He realized that may have gone awry in the worst possible way, when he came home to find both Bonnie and Stefan's cars in the driveway, with Stefan speeding off immediately after his arrival. Instantly all of the worst-case scenarios for what that might mean flashed through his mind as he sloppily parked his car and rushed into the house. Even with his vampire speed, Damon felt that he had never moved slower in his life.

The sight he walked in on was a scene from his worst nightmare. Bonnie laying on the couch covered in blood was the worst thing he could imagine and his head was swimming. He belatedly took in that she seemed to be awake, so he started to try to piece together what was going on. "Are you alright?" he asked, diving to his knees at her side.

"I'm better with you here," she said as she made an afford to sit up properly. "And I'll be even better than that if you run me a bath."

Once he was assured she was alright, relief rushed through his body. Once the initial panic was over, however, he found himself immediately overwhelmed with the scent of demon blood; that answered another question. As disgusting as that was, he was so happy that it wasn't Bonnie's blood that he managed to only think of and not say that they would need a new couch. "I'll go run you a bath and grab some pajamas for you," he said as he scrunched his nose slightly at the offensive smell.

"I won't take offense at your face registering that I reek of demon guts."

"Your forgiving nature is why I love you," he teased with a kiss on her cheek before blurring upstairs. She rolled her weary eyes and leaned back against the back of the couch. As tired as she was, Bonnie knew that laying back down would quickly lead to falling asleep. If she fell asleep without a bath she would greatly regret it in the morning, so she yawned and stretched and just thought longingly of that giant tub filled with fragrant bubbles.

In no time at all, Damon was standing before her looking as attentive as a well-paid servant. "Are you ready for your bath, Miss Bennett?"

She dramatically flopped onto her back and placed her hand over her eyes. "Oh no, I couldn't. I'm too tired." It was always a treat when Damon was in a spoiling kind of mood.

His ever-present smirk grew into a lascivious grin as they fell into the steps of the same dance they'd been doing every evening for some time. His favorite part was when she would pretend that she was going to spend her evening doing anything other than taking a sudsy bubble bath with him and falling asleep in his bed. "I guess I'll have to come with you to make sure you don't fall asleep in the bath. And you'll be wanting to be carried upstairs, also?"

"Oh, could you?" she implored sweetly, clasping her weakly and fanning her long lashes at him.

"Anything for you, Bon Bon," he said as he hauled her easily into his arms and began carrying her to his bathroom at a sedate stroll.

Once they were both in the tub sipping on bourbon, Damon decided they she was relaxed enough that it would be a good time to find out exactly what had happened. "Bonnie...I noticed Stefan was speeding out of the driveway as I arrived. Do you have any idea why he might have been in such a hurry to leave?"

Her eyes widened and he could hear her swallow. "He flipped his switch and turned his humanity back on," she hedged.

"Gentle reminder that I'm a vampire, Bonnie; I can hear your heart pounding. That means you are not being entirely honest. No matter what you tell me, I'm not about to leave you here alone tonight, so come on, spill. What happened between you two that left you lying on the couch as he sped out of here like a bat out of hell?"

She sighed dramatically and downed a sizeable portion of bourbon. "He set me on the couch after I passed out."

Damon's eyes widened and his stomach flipped over. "Fainted? Why did you faint? Are you sick? Did he do something?"

"He cornered me and asked me why I was always avoiding him. I told him the truth and…" Bonnie had to pause to collect herself, even with a healthy amount of bourbon in her system.

Damon looked very grave and had unconsciously leaned quite close to her as she was talking. His posture made it apparent to Bonnie that he was feeling a lot of tension as well, so she picked up the pace to spare the both of them. "He started ranting and raving, the business with the fangs and veins started and honestly, the next thing I remember is waking up on the couch. Apparently that shook him out of…whatever was going on because when I woke up he was regular Stefan again."

Damon closed his eyes, leaned back, and schooled his features into a reasonable facsimile of calm. "And then he left? That's all?"

"He apologized, and then I guess he heard you pull up." She shrugged. "He said he'd be back to talk to you in the morning, and asked me to tell you what happened."

"That's a surprise. He flew out of here like a bat out of hell, so I thought I'd have to hunt him down after I saw to you."

"My guess is that he just didn't want me to have to deal with anymore drama tonight and he knew when you got hold of them there was going to be a problem."

"Well I'm glad that after almost eating you he decided to extend a bit of consideration."

That level of drama was enough to prompt a laugh from Bonnie. "I've had enough things try to eat me to be able to say definitively that he did not try to eat me, Damon. He was just acting out and as you can see," she gestured at her body, "I am entirely unharmed by the exchange."

Damon raked his eyes carefully around her shoulders, across her chest, and up her slender neck to her blushing face. It's easy to forget you are in a rather intimate situation once it becomes a part of your routine, but a heated glance from him was a heady reminder that they were wandering into uncharted territory. "You look as lovely and fully intact as always."

"Ever the charmer," she said with a sassy smirk.

He lifted her hand into his and kissed it. "I've heard ladies like to be charmed. Almost as much as they like to climb out of the tub when the start turning into prunes."

"I am tired, and now a bit drunk, but I do have one question before we head to bed. What did you get up to today? You were later than usual to arrive, and I noticed you seemed to be covered in almost as much blood as I was."

Damon distracted himself and attempted to distract her by taking his time kissing each of her fingers, then her palm, and then her wrist. Quickly gathering that he was going to likely kiss right up her arm like Gomez Adams, Bonnie took her hand back and patted his shoulder soothingly. He smiled wryly and looked her right in the eyes. "Cleaning up some of Stefan's mess, demon slaying, the usual…"

She was content to let him be vague about what cleaning up Stefan's messes entailed, since he'd been doing that on his own for centuries, but the bit about demons prompted a head tilt. "Vampires can't kill demons; only mortals can. So what exactly happened with them?"

"Well, Enzo got captured by some so I went to rescue him." Bonnie rolled her eyes. Enzo was a nuisance she really should have left dead the first time. "We're pretty short-handed, so we need all hands on deck. Not to mention that guy will flip sides in a minute to save his sorry ass, so we can't leave him long as a captive."

"Fair enough. So what did they want with him?"

"They wanted to torture Valerie's whereabouts out of him." Bonnie gasped and clasped her chest. "Don't worry Bon, he didn't give her up and she's alright. Exactly why they were looking for her is tomorrow's problem, along with anything that isn't climbing into my giant, comfy bed." Everything immediate had been discussed and he didn't want to spend another moment rehashing the day when cool, clean sheets were calling his name.

Damon took her hands in his and stood up, taking her with him. Even knowing how many things they needed to do and how many asses they needed to kick in the morning, Damon still had the same smile on his face he did every evening he got to spend with Bonnie. She smiled back, and the rest of the evening was idle chitchat as they performed their nightly routines and both climbed into Damon's big four-poster bed. Bonnie had on pajamas and Damon had on a pair of boxer briefs, as usual.

"Damon?" she murmured in a quiet and sleepy voice.

"Hmmm?"

"If you don't think you'll be able to stay calm with Stefan, take it outside. I hate antique shopping and you drag me along to do it again every time you two trashing the living room."

Damon chuckled and shook his head in the darkness. "We're going to have to go anyway since the couch is already ruined."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. She knew he heard her and wasn't beating anyone up in the living room in the morning. "Good night, Damon."