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Damon woke with the first rays of dawn, as he always did. Even though he had possession of a daylight ring since the day he became a vampire, he still possessed the natural wariness of the sun that would not allow its rising to go unnoticed if he was resting in a place that received sunlight. As Bonnie didn't share that tendency, he often found himself awake long before she was. That time peaceful time that he cherished. Having spent most of his afterlife in crushing loneliness, he knew better than to take waking up next to a person that loved him for granted.

Knowing that he was expecting a visitor first thing in the morning, Damon regretfully extricated himself from the tangle of Bonnie's limbs, got dressed, and headed downstairs to wait for Stefan to arrive. No doubt this song and dance would play out the exact same way it had played out a dozen times over the centuries. Over and over again Stefan starved himself, ran thin on patience, snapped and then made a nightmarish disaster of everything around him. Damon was on eternal cleanup duty chasing behind him. Burying segments of bodies, compelling hundreds of people, concocting cover stories, faking evidence...all of that was old hat. Mostly, at least. Even as a vampire himself there were a few wreckages so absurd it still left an impression. Damon expected Stefan was going to apologize, be disgusted with himself, swear he didn't mean to do any of the crazy shit he always did, and then go into an endless shame spiral about how terribly all of his actions had affected him. The more they went through this cycle, the more frustrating it got.

At least the other times this had happened, Damon didn't really have much skin in the game. While he had been waiting for the comet, he had specifically avoided getting attached to any women. He had one woman he wanted, and while he eventually succumbed to loneliness enough to take on lovers for temporary entertainment, there was never anyone that it would really hurt him if Stefan lost his cool around them. That was then, and now everything was different. Bonnie was a living breathing woman that gave Damon everything he didn't even know he needed.

Damon had only been gone a few minutes when his absence woke Bonnie from her slumber. It was tempting to go back to sleep and simply leave the brothers to it, but she had a few things she would like to say to Stefan herself. More than that, if there was any hope in their confrontation ending in a way that didn't destroy the house and leave them with yet another decades-long resentment between them a moderator would be needed. Bonnie wasn't precisely eager to see Stefan, but putting on her big girl pants and doing what needed to be done had always been who Bonnie was and she was not going to change that because of a scare. Bonnie took her time getting ready, because she did not have Damon's ease with mornings, and they always got along better when they both had a bit of time to themselves before they tried to meaningfully interact.

"Good morning, Bon Bon. You look ravishing," Damon said with a flirty wiggle of his brows.

Bonnie smiled and walked over to get a cup of coffee. "Good morning to you too!"

"Sorry Bon, no coffee yet."

That was odd since nearly every morning Damon started coffee right away so that it would be ready when she woke up. "You've been down here for a bit, so I'm surprised." She looked at him searchingly, tilted her head, then a lightbulb went off in her head. She walked up to him and gently grabbed his chin. Sure enough, she caught the distinct aroma of bourbon once she was close enough. "But I shouldn't be; you're already drunk."

Damon's brows furrowed with irritation and he folded his arms defensively. "Did you really expect me to take on yet another round of Stefan's humanity bullshit sober?"

"Since it was eight o clock in the morning, yes. Yes, I did. Silly me for thinking that just maybe you would handle this like an adult."

Damon scoffed, grabbed the bottle of bourbon on the counter, filled another glass and defiantly downed it. "Clearly you didn't, or you wouldn't have come down to babysit."

Bonnie held out her hand expectantly and Damon poured another glass of bourbon and handed it to her. "That was obviously not what I was holding my hand out for. Give me the damn bottle Damon, you have clearly had enough."

"You take the glass and I'll surrender the bottle," he challenged.

Bonnie was finding her blood pressure rising rapidly. It was too early in the morning for her to deal with this nonsense. Especially without coffee. "Or you can just give me the damn bottle. Doing what I tell you always works."

Damon smirked at her and slowly lifted the bottle of bourbon towards his lips. "You know the game, Bonster. You always forfeit if you won't play."

Bonnie quickly waved her hands in a staying motion and took the glass. She knew from experience that she would rather have a glass herself than deal with Damon after he chugged a bottle of the stuff. Vampires had a much higher tolerance than a human, but they were no less annoying once they managed to get sufficiently sloshed. "You win, I'm having booze before breakfast. Now, how about you talk to me."

Damon set the bottle aside as promised, but he just glowered at her. She knew what the glowering was about, so with a roll of her eyes, she took a decently-sized swallow. He was officially in the kind of challenging mood where he was not giving an inch unless she did.

Apparently satisfied, he cleared his throat and his posture relaxed a bit. "Bonnie, you could have died last night."

"But I didn't. I'm here, I'm fine," she responded in a soothing tone.

He shook his head vigorously and frowned. "But how can we be sure that when-not if-he turns it off again that you'll still be fine?"

She nodded and sipped her bourbon as she took the time to think of a real answer to that question. It was obvious that this was no situation where an empty platitude would wrap everything up. They had been very much so living day-to-day, but it was starting to feel like Stefan's blood issue wasn't something they could afford to treat as an aberration. "Damon, you've turned yours off since I met you, but you haven't hurt me. Why is that?"

"That isn't strictly speaking true…"

Bonnie frowned and tried to think. "I'm quite sure I would remember you trying to eat me, Damon."

Damon laughed bitterly, "apparently not."

Then it hit her. "You're talking about when I was possessed by Emily? Your humanity was off then?"

"Yes, it was. And I hurt you. So, I don't think I'm qualified to give a very good answer on that."

Bonnie smiled gently and placed her hand on his chest. "That was a long time ago, Damon. You didn't know me, and I didn't know you. Hell, I wasn't even me at the time. Now stop brooding and come with me to the present, please. Since we have gotten close to each other, no matter what state you were in you haven't done me any harm. Why do you think that is?"

He smiled back down at her and said the only thing that came to his mind. "Because I couldn't live without you."

She blushed and avoided his gaze. "I'm sure you could. You've lived a long time without me."

He shook his head. "I've lived a long time not knowing you. But now that I do, you're stuck with me. But I'm not exactly sure how that translates to the issue at hand."

Bonnie laughed at the slow speed of Damon's drunken thoughts. "If getting to know me is why I'm safe from the worst your vampirism has to offer, then maybe what I need to do is get to know Stefan."

The thought of Stefan coming to know Bonnie the way he did sent a peculiar chill up Damon's spine. "There's not quite room for three in my bathtub, so I'm not sure that plan will hold up."

Between finishing that glass of bourbon on an empty stomach, and Damon's poorly concealed jealousy Bonnie found herself laughing out loud. "Must you be so dramatic? I just meant that it would probably even the odds if we hung out more." Damon was appropriately chagrined, and he started to laugh himself. Their tipsy giggling came to a screeching halt upon a knock on the door.

Damon looked at Bonnie and silently asked her if they could just ignore his brother outside. She raised an eyebrow and motioned towards the door. They were getting this the hell over with. Damon took a deep breath, shook himself vigorously, then trudged towards the door, dragging his feet the whole way. Bonnie had managed to temporarily talk him out of his poor mood, but the second he saw his brother with breakfast and flowers, it was back. He folded his arms and stared silently.

Stefan had expected a foul mood, so he ignored Damon's silent unhappiness and carried on as if it were any other morning. "Good morning, brother. Do you mind if I come in?"

Damon shrugged noncommittally and stepped aside. "It is your house, so I guess you can just do whatever you want."

It wasn't usually Damon's style to be passive aggressive, but Stefan let it go and went to the kitchen to get to work on breakfast. As soon as he saw Bonnie in the kitchen Damon's reaction made a bit more sense. He put on the best smile he could manage in the tense atmosphere and handed her the roses. "These are for you. As an apology, and hopefully as a gesture of friendship. I've never been much of a friend to you, but I would like to change that." He looked over at Damon whose glare had only deepened. "—If that's something you would like."

Bonnie accepted the flowers and quickly located a vase for them. "Thank you, Stefan. They're beautiful. In fact," she said with a glance towards Damon, "that very thing is exactly what Damon and I were discussing this morning."

Stefan's brow furrowed and he looked to Damon for confirmation. "More or less, Bon thinks you're less likely to go on a ripper binge and eat someone if you're friends." Bonnie rolled her eyes at Damon's bluntness but didn't precisely disagree.

"What Damon is saying as unpleasantly as he possibly can, is that vampires himself included, have atendency to be partial towards people they're fond of. That mostly holds up even if they flip the switch. So, the best way to avoid a potential disaster like last night is to get to know each other better."

Stefan nodded thoughtfully. He had wanted to get closer to Bonnie in one way or another for a while, but that subconscious desire came bursting forth when he lost control of his impulses. Maybe actually doing that would at least solve one of his many problems. "Well, a good start to that is probably breakfast. No judgment, but maybe you two would like some French toast and coffee with your bourbon?"

That broke the ice enough to get them all laughing. Sharing a meal was unlikely to solve all of their problems, but it was a decent start to solving one of them.