Awkward energy filled the boarding house. With Valerie resting, Stefan and Bonnie were left with only one another as companionship. There was so much to talk about and so little desire to be the first to break the silence. Stefan had taken to listening to Bonnie, and she was providing quite the symphony of nervous little noises. By the time Bonnie had sighed for the fifth time, crossed and uncrossed her legs for the seventh time, checked her phone four times and gotten up from the couch to pace nervously, Stefan was starting to slightly insane. When she began to tap her coffin-shaped black fingernails on the coffee table, he finally snapped. "Bonnie, we can't just sit here until he comes back or Valerie wakes up!"
She sighed yet again and raked her fingers through her chocolate waves. "Well, what should we be doing, then?"
Stefan wasn't really sure, but Damon would have been. Thinking of where Damon would start with an anxious Bonnie, he said the most Damon thing he could think of. "We should obviously be drinking bourbon."
"You're generally not much for bourbon," Bonnie said with a skeptical raise of her brow. "Particularly not so early in the day."
He smiled, got up from the couch and walked over to the sideboard and started filling a pair of glasses. "There are worse things than me doing something I wouldn't generally do. You could always be stuck in this house with me…doing what I usually do!" With an oddly familiar rakish smirk, he picked up his glass and gestured at her in a little toast.
Bonnie wasn't sure how that was going to turn out, but that wasn't nearly enough to convince her to turn down a perfectly good glass of bourbon. She walked over and picked up the second one and clinked it against his proffered glass. "Here's to our friendship," she said with just a hint of sarcasm.
"Here's to our friendship," he repeated in a sincerer tone. Sure, they didn't have a friendship yet, but Stefan was pretty hopeful they were going to get there one day. He and his brother had failed one another so many times over the years, but on this, he wouldn't fail. He was going to do what he needed to keep this woman safe, and what he needed to do was learn to care for the lovely creature in front of him. He'd had more challenging circumstances, to be sure.
Some light chit-chat, and quite a few more glasses of bourbon later, they were both feeling the effects. Centuries of vampirism had done little to correct Stefan's tendency to be a lightweight, so he was sinking just as quickly as she was. The bourbon had done a fantastic job of helping to clear the awkward air between them, so in no time at all, they had made themselves comfortable on the couch and struck up a good rapport. Bonnie sat facing him with her bare feet tucked neatly underneath her and Stefan decided to test a theory by putting his feet up on the coffee table.
She instinctively reacted to him putting his feet on the table. "Damon barely tolerates cups on these things without coasters," she chided.
Stefan put his feet on the floor and ran his hands through his hair in a mockery of his usual angst. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. Then, he looked around the room slowly and methodically, stroking his chin in thought. He even squinted for good measure, which prompted a chuckle from Bonnie. "Guess I'm lucky he's not here," he said with a small shrug. "And speaking of not here…" he prompted.
"Do we have to talk about the elephant in the room? We were getting along so well." Bonnie pouted and took a swig right out of the bottle.
He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm not sure if that was more uncanny or adorable."
Bonnie scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes. "Oh god, you're getting mushy-friendly drunk! No wonder you don't usually drink…"
Stefan smiled brilliantly and looked at Bonnie like she had just hung the moon. "You already know I'm not above torture," he warned with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. "I'll compliment you all day if I have to. Why talk about any of the crazy things going on around here when I can just talk about how lovely you look in that dress. Better yet, how much I've always wanted to be your friend. Or—"
"—I think I get what Grams meant about killing someone with kindness," she interrupted with an exaggerated shudder. "So, about Damon…we had a bit of a…very small…disagreement."
He put on a more serious expression. At least, he tried to. Stefan was too drunk to say this entirely without mirth. "When someone turns on a faucet and a blender, that's what it usually means," he said. "What was this disagreement about? Valerie?"
She nodded absently and took a deep breath. Once it became clear that he was going to merely continue looking at her intensely if she didn't speak, she looked away from him and reluctantly elaborated. "Technically it was." She motioned toward the stairs to remind him that she was actually there and mouthed the rest at him. He had a pretty good idea she wasn't safe last night, but he took Enzo at his word that she was.
Stefan felt a powerful rage well up in him and he got up and faced away from Bonnie just in case he was vamping out. He disliked Enzo in general, and he was particularly bothered by the idea he had something to do with harming Valerie. Their relationship history with one another was less than stellar, but he still felt an intense protective urge towards her. In spite of the anger he felt at that, he responded in identical silence. Why would anyone ever take that bastard at his word?
Bonnie shrugged. "To answer your earlier question," she replied out loud, "he left to tie up that loose end."
(Meanwhile on the road…)
Just as they were settling in, Damon arrived at his destination. He had left his car a few blocks away so that Enzo wouldn't hear him coming from a mile away on the off-chance he was still there. He had a good set of torture implements in his trunk, along with some vervained rope, gloves and an apron. If he was going to have an extended torture session, he found it easier to keep his patience if he didn't aggravate his OCD by soaking himself in congealing blood.
It seems fortune was smiling on him that day because the presence of Enzo's car hinted that he hadn't had the good sense to run. Either he hadn't anticipated Damon untangling his deception so quickly, or he had yet another lie up his sleeve to help him wiggle out of the last one. The former meant he was likely to make a break for It as soon as he figured out Damon was near, and the latter meant that he really thought Damon was a fool.
As he remained perfectly still in the dense woods, Damon silently contemplated his options. He had always been a man that did what needed to be done, but for some reason, it was always harder with Enzo. Well, he knew the reason, but he was loathe to admit it; falling for a cellmate was so cliché. The only thing more embarrassing than that is being unable to truly cut them loose when circumstances no longer force them together. He solved that problem temporarily by flipping his switch, but this time that wasn't an option. Time had turned Enzo into a dangerous enemy and Damon was going to have to finally bring himself to treat him like one.
With his mind made up and his priorities in order, Damon decided to go right to the front door and knock. Best-case scenario, he opens it. Worst-case, he runs.
"Damon, mate, I didn't expect to see you again so soon," Enzo offered in tepid greeting.
Damon could see over Enzo's shoulder that most of the house was already packed away in boxes and there was a half-filled suitcase open in the middle of the floor. "So, it seems. Leaving so soon?"
"I'm not one to spend too much time in the same place."
Given that Enzo had spent most of his life doing just that, Damon wouldn't exactly agree. But presumably, he meant he wasn't one to do so unless forced. Leaving that issue aside, Damon got right to the point. "Can I come in, or are you going to leave me out here like a stranger?" He topped it off with a charming smirk for good measure.
"Come on in," Enzo said with an answering smile. They hugged and commenced small talk. "So, what brings you to my humble abode?"
"Our friendship," Damon answered. As with many things Damon said, it wasn't quite the truth but it wasn't a lie either.
Enzo smirked and leered at Damon suggestively. "Did you just miss me then, love?"
Out of patience for wasting time, Damon disarmed him with a flirty smile and moved in close enough behind him that Enzo could feel his cool breath on his neck when he spoke. "Maybe," he murmured in a sultry whisper. In the back of Enzo's mind, his instincts were warning him to be wary, but he shook it off. Damon had never been a danger to him before, and the unspoken offer was just too tempting to turn down.
Damon took advantage of his closeness and wrapped one hand gently around Enzo's neck and trailed the other one lightly along his side. He wasn't exerting enough pressure to restrain him, but that could easily change in an instant. This was a familiar dance for a vampire in the mood to catch a victim without resorting to compulsion, but Enzo had never gotten to be free long enough to perfect the art. How easily Enzo was falling right into this trap had Damon fighting a temptation to laugh.
Enzo's mind was nowhere and everywhere at once. After spending so long so close, yet unable to touch Damon here he was. He'd done everything he could to get close to him, and now that tiresome masquerade was over. He didn't want his niece, his brother, his witch or certainly not his mother. What he had wanted all this time, but couldn't admit was Damon. And finally, he was getting what he wanted. When he felt Damon's lips against his neck his mind went entirely blank.
Unfortunately for Enzo, he was not getting what he bargained for. As soon as Damon had a taste he was ready to take a bite. And not a teasing nibble; he sunk his teeth deep into Enzo's neck as his hands that were already on him clamped into a vise-like grip. Vampire blood wasn't as rich as human blood, but there was still a certain thrill to draining someone good no matter what the particulars. Damon held on tight and swallowed Enzo's blood in great mouthfuls, relishing every second of it.
Just as Damon was starting to lose himself entirely in bloodlust, Enzo was starting to understand that he had been royally played. His body began struggling instinctively, but his mind was not getting the picture nearly fast enough for him to do much more than flail aimlessly and stutter out his dissent. "What? Why?"
Damon continued to steadily drain him for a bit longer, enjoying his futile struggles until they started to die down. Once Damon had drained his former friend enough that he was nearly unconscious he decided to answer his question. Enzo would be answering his soon enough, so it was only polite to give him that much. "Because you are a problem I've waited too long to take care of."