Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries, however consider this story mine. Any dialogues not canon from the show as well as any descriptive sentences are the end result of over twenty years of writing. I have poured my heart and soul into every beautiful paragraph, every perfect sentence, every hot and/or romantic scene, and every funny one-liner. To copy this work or any other and claim as one's own, in whole or in part is a criminal offence punishable by ostracism, harassment by my loyal readers, and possibly even dismissal by the MODs. It's not worth it; don't be a thief :)

Chapter 16: Inconvenient Truths

The tension in the room is suffocating.

If there was ever a moment when Jeremy Gilbert felt the need to personally sample Damon's entire liquor supply, this would definitely be it.

He can understand the tension from Elena and Damon; that was obvious to anyone with half a brain! Clearly something had happened between when they'd both skipped town and when they'd finally gotten the messages to come back.

Jeremy doesn't much care what the details of that something are, because first of all, gross!

For all that Jeremy had known that it was only a matter of time before Elena figured out her feelings for Damon (which had been obvious to everyone except Elena!), she is still his sister, and brothers just don't want to think about their sisters doing that. (Plus Damon had snapped his neck not too long ago, but then again, he had put vervain in Damon's best scotch, so they were technically even.)

No, the tension between Damon, Elena, and Stefan was nothing new to Jeremy. Hell, he was used to that!

The tension between Elena and Caroline however, that was weird in of itself, but when you added the fact that something was clearly happening between his sister's now-ex boyfriend and her best friend since grade school, he might as well be in a bloody soap opera!

Ric appears to be just as uncomfortable as Jeremy, but luckily for him, he can at least get away with pouring himself a glass of the strongest liquor he can find. Jeremy, on the other hand, is stuck literally in the middle of all of this drama.

It was amazing how claustrophobic he could feel even with an entire couch to himself.

Caroline is perched on one of the armchairs, biting her lower lip and anxiously looking over at Stefan, who is doing a very good impression of a statue just a few feet from the fireplace.

Elena's perched on the opposite end of the sofa, but she jumps up from time and paces the room.

Then there's Damon, trying very hard to act like none of this is fazing him at all; only the half-empty bottle of bourbon in his hands tells a different story.

Bonnie, to her credit, has at least made a real effort to remain objective and focus on the current situation, quickly debriefing Elena and Damon on what everyone else already knows as soon as they'd walked into the boarding house.

Elena had still been half asleep (Damon had carried her from the car without waking her) when the rest of the team, minus Liz, had reassembled for a late-night debriefing.

Well, that, and to formulate an actual plan, since the first meeting had been missing two vital players.

"So Katherine's up to something more than just making our lives a living hell and you all suspect Elena's in danger." Damon drawls, rolling his eyes. "And yet, you left several messages begging us to come back to Mystic Falls, leaving a place that nobody knew we were staying at that just so happened to be several hours away from here?"

"Well, what else would you expect us to do, Damon?" Caroline snaps.

Damon shrugs. "Kill the bitch."

"That's your answer to everything," Stefan mutters under his breath.

"Because it's only the best plan ever!" Damon says pointedly. "Kill Katherine. Ergo, she can't carry out whatever diabolical scheme she's planning! ERGO, we wouldn't have had to cut our evening short and I wouldn't have to clean up yet another mess!"

"We can't kill Katherine," Stefan says firmly.

"Why not?" Damon whines.

"Because there are things much bigger than Katherine that we need to worry about!" Bonnie explains, "and we're going to need her alive if we're to find out what they are."

"She's right," Jeremy adds, rushing to Bonnie's defense. "Katherine is definitely afraid of someone, and she wouldn't have come out of hiding after all these years unless she had a plan.

"Who cares?" Damon asks, pouring himself another drink. "If there's really some bigger threat out there, it's after Katherine, not us. I say we let him have her in exchange for letting us live." He raises his glass, toasting to his own brilliant idea, no doubt.

"It's not that simple," Bonnie says, as if she's explaining it to a child. "Whatever is after Katherine is likely also a threat to Elena."

"Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell the difference between the two of them!" Damon scoffs. "I mean, what idiot would make that mistake twice?"

If looks could kill, Bonnie might have turned Damon to a pile of ashes with the glare she sent his way.

"Regardless of whether or not Katherine's been on the run all these years, we're not going to get anything out of her. Our best bet is to find out what Mason knows about her plans."

"Katherine's with Mason Lockwood?" Damon scrunches up his face in disgust. "Werewolf thing aside, he's a surfer. What would she even see in him? She's got to be using him; I mean the only thing they have in common is that he's as big of a dick as she is a raging psychotic bitc-"

"Can we please focus, here?" Bonnie snaps irritably. "Obviously Katherine's up to something and she's using Mason as a means to an end; the question is why is she using him."

"She's Katherine," Damon says matter-of-factly. "She loooves to screw with men and Mason is just dumb enough to fall for her act!"

"You mean like you did?" Bonnie says pointedly. Damon makes a face at her and holds up his middle finger in silent retaliation.

Alaric shakes his head.

"It's more than that," he says, choosing to ignore Bonnie and Damon for the moment. "Katherine definitely wants something from him, specifically, and I think it has to do with the research Isobel was working on at Duke. Her assistant sent a bunch of stuff over."

"Mmmm, Vanessa...the hottie," Damon wiggles his brows suggestively, earning a death glare from Elena.

"What?" he feigns innocence. "It's not like I said she's hotter than you"

"Yes, Vanessa," Ric says, using his 'teacher voice' to regain everyone's attention. "Now do you remember the old Aztec Curse she told us about?"

"Sun and the Moon..." Damon says in a bored tone. "Blah blah blah..."

"Yeah, well supposedly vampires and werewolves used to roam freely until a shaman put a curse on them to limit their power," Alaric explains. "And since then, werewolves can only turn on a full moon and vampires are weakened by the sun."

"Most of them, anyway," Damon waves his hand, flashing his daylight ring.

"According to the legend, the werewolf part of the curse is sealed with the Moonstone."

"What do you mean, sealed?" Jeremy asks.

They hadn't really gone over a lot of the details of the curse earlier, since at the time their main focus had been to tail Mason and keep Katherine from coming after any of them or figuring out that they knew anything (however little it was that they actually knew).

"It's a witch thing," Damon explains, "Whatever seals the curse is the key to un-sealing it."

"Maybe Mason Lockwood believes he can use the Moonstone to break the curse." Alaric suggests.

"If we start believing in some witchy-woo legend from a picture book, we're idiots," Damon scoffs, rolling his eyes.

Bonnie glares at him in annoyance.

"As Alaric was saying before he was rudely interrupted, we think that Katherine is trying to find this stone and break the curse."

Damon arches his brow pointedly.

"You mean to tell me you all think Katherine is trying to make it so that vampires don't have to worry about the sun anymore?"

Bonnie shrugs, "Pretty much."

"And this is a bad thing?"

Elena frowns, as if puzzling something out in her head.

"But a spell like that, it would be more complicated than just finding the object. Don't these things usually require more of a sacrifice?"

Bonnie nods. "I was getting to that point before someone," she glares at Damon, "interrupted me! And yes, Elena, the spell is much more complicated than simply finding the moonstone that bound it in the first place. That's part of the reason you're in danger; the spell requires the blood of the person who bound it...or their doppelganger."

"And again, I fail to see how this is a problem too difficult for you all to solve on your own!" Damon says, annoyed.

"Kill Katherine, destroy the moonstone, and call us when Elena's no longer in danger!" He says, listing each task on his fingers and speaking in a tone that said 'do I have to think of everything?'

"In the meantime, we'll check into the fanciest resort that just so happens to be as far away from here as we can get."

Elena shakes her head. "No, Damon! We can't just leave again. What about Jeremy?"

"We'll take him with us," he nods casually at Jeremy. "You're cool with the back seat, right?"

"What about Jenna?" Elena asks again. "And Bonnie, and Matt, and-"

"Elena," Damon sighs in exasperation. "I can't fit the entire town into the backseat of my car!"

"I'm not asking you to!" Elena replies. "I'm just pointing out that skipping town is not
an option when anyone we leave behind could be in danger."

"Not like that stopped you before," Caroline mumbles under her breath.

"What was that?" Elena snaps.

Caroline narrows her eyes accusingly.

"I said that it never occurred to you that running off with Damon would leave us all in danger before, so why should it stop you now?"

"You mean just like how it never occurred to you not to go after my ex boyfriend not even twenty four hours after breaking up with him?" Elena growls.

"Oh you're one to talk!" Caroline shouts back. "You were too busy with Damon to even notice that your phone was ringing! Or did you just not care to stop screwing him long enough to answer?"

"My phone was only OFF because I got tired of Stefan and your poor excuses for what you did!"

"Like it even matters!" Caroline spits. "The ONLY reason Stefan and I got closer is because you've been too preoccupied with his brother! I mean, how slutty is that? You couldn't be satisfied with just ONE of them?"

"I should be asking YOU that," Elena retorts. "And besides, I didn't 'go after' Damon to get back at Stefan for lying to me. I can't help that I fell in love with him, and nothing you say is going to make me feel guilty that I finally admitted it to myself and did something about it!"

"If you're soooo in love with Damon, then why the hell are you attacking me for kissing Stefan?"

"Because you're supposed to be my best friend," Elena snaps. "And regardless of my feelings for Damon, Stefan was still my boyfriend when you kissed him!"

"Well I'm sorry!" Caroline snaps. "It's a little difficult to follow your relationship status updates all the damn time!""

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh come on, Elena!" She says in exasperation.

"I get whiplash just thinking about all the times you've broken up with your boyfriends, only to get back together the next week! For all I knew, you and Stefan were off again, because that's usually the case after one of your fights. It was the same with Matt, too, and the ONLY reason you didn't get back together with him is because of Stefan, and now you're pulling the same stunt with Damon! And…seriously, DAMON?"

She rolls her eyes. "Of all the guys you could rebound with you chose a psychopath?"

"Reformed psycopath" Damon corrects, holding up his bottle of bourbon (that is now almost empty) as if to remind everyone he's still in the room.

Jeremy inches himself away from his sister; the last thing he needs is to be literally in the middle of a cat-fight.

"Funny," Elena retorts, still very much focused on her argument with Caroline and not having heard Damon's quip. "Because I was going to ask Stefan and Matt how they could choose a raging bi-."

"Ooookaaaay!" Alaric claps his hands together loudly to get everyone's attention and in his best "teacher" voice says, "I think we've gone off topic long enough! Bonnie, how about you tell us the rest of the plan?"

Bonnie nods, giving Alaric a grateful smile.

She is probably relieved at not having to break up a fight between her two best friends, even if she technically isn't speaking to Caroline right now thanks to her "betrayal".

Personally Jeremy doesn't get why she is so upset, but then again, nothing about women and their friendships made much sense to him. Elena had come home in tears many times when they were kids, saying that she and Bonnie (or Caroline) weren't friends anymore, and then a few days later they'd be giggling about boys and other silly things as if nothing had happened.

"As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted," Bonnie says, glaring pointedly at Damon, "if Katherine gets her hands on the Moonstone she will be that much more of a danger to Elena. The fact that she hasn't come after her, or attacked Jeremy or Jenna to lure her out of hiding, proves that she doesn't have it yet."

"I think we all figured that out already," Damon mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes for good measure.

Bonnie ignores him.

"So I think that right now, our best plan would be to get the stone before Katherine does."

"Great idea, Bonnie!" Damon exclaims, giving her a 'thumbs up'. "Except for the fact that we have no idea where the damn thing is!"

"Actually, we do," Jeremy replies, leaping to Bonnie's defense.

He's rather pleased with himself for having figured out something that the others hadn't thought of. Finally he can be of some use, instead of everyone treating him like a kid all the damn time.

"I think Tyler might know where it is."

"Of course," Stefan muses, "it makes perfect sense."

"No it doesn't!" Damon rolls his eyes again. "Why would Mason Lockwood give the Moonstone to his nephew?"

"Maybe he didn't," Jeremy shrugs. "But Tyler and I have been hanging together a lot, and he told me his uncle's been looking for a family heirloom he had stashed somewhere in the mansion. Maybe it's the Moonstone. I could help you get it-"

"No!" Elena says firmly in that tone of hers. Jeremy hates that tone. It was always followed by something on the lines of "you're too young", or "it's too dangerous."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Elena!" Jeremy insists. "I can handle this!"

"I don't want you involved."

"I'm already involved," Jeremy points out, exasperated.

"I was involved before Katherine paid me a visit. Hell, I was involved even before Damon snapped my neck!"

"Sorry about that, by the way," Damon says just after swallowing the last few drops in the bottle.

"I'm over it," Jeremy replies before turning his focus back to his sister. "So if you think for a second that you can keep me out of this, you're wrong! I'm in this whether you like it or not."

"I don't want to see you get hurt!" Elena insists. "I don't want to see anyone I care about get hurt."

She's pacing the floor again, which is never a good sign. Elena sinking into the couch, defeated would have been preferable to the determination he can see at the moment.

"Maybe we can get Mason on our side, or at least find out what he knows," she suggests, choosing for the moment to ignore anything Jeremy has just said and focusing her attention on coming up with alternatives that (predictably) would not involve him.

"Or we can torture it out of him," Damon adds.

"It doesn't have to come to that," Elena turns her gaze pointedly toward Damon. "We can get him on our side; I know we can."

"Even if we do get him on our side, there's no guarantee he'll just give us the Moonstone." Ric points out. "If Mason is as close to Katherine as Bonnie said, then he doesn't even trust her enough with it. So if he doesn't even trust his own girlfriend..."

"That's why we have Plan B," Damon reminds them. "And who better to torture Wolf Boy than someone who actually has the talent and enthusiasm for the job?"

Caroline looks pointedly at Elena.

"See? Psychopath!"

"This is war, Blondie," Damon says exasperated. "Sometimes the only thing standing between you and certain death is whether or not you can do what needs to be done, regardless of how bloody it gets!"

"Well you don't have to enjoy it so much!"

"Enough!" Stefan commands.

Everyone is shocked into silence, surprised that he has finally spoken.

"Damon's right. We might have to torture Mason and if there is any hesitancy on our parts then he'll see through it. He won't talk if he doesn't think we're serious, and as much as I hate to admit it, I can't do what needs to be done without losing control. Damon said it himself; this is war, and if we're going to beat Katherine at her own game then we have to be willing to play at her level. Katherine wouldn't hesitate to torture us, so we can't hesitate either."

"So it's settled then." Jeremy says. "I'll talk to Tyler and…"

"You will not be helping," Damon corrects. "Just because you have a magic ring that lets you cheat death doesn't mean I'm going to hand you a crossbow and let you play monster hunter!"

"You can't stop me!" Jeremy challenges.

"I could kill you again," Damon warns.

"That would at least keep you out of my way for a half hour or so, depending on how much healing you need to do before you wake up."

He catches the angry look Elena gives him.

"I'm kidding," he assures her. Then, as if he just can't help himself, he adds "mostly."

"Look, obviously we can't tell him what to do," Ric points out, establishing his role as the only sane adult and parental figure in the room.

"But someone is going to have to make sure Jenna is safe. I can't protect her if I'm here figuring all this out, and since we can't exactly tell her what's going on, we need someone to keep her busy."

Jeremy sighs, rolling his eyes.

It was obvious, even without Ric looking directly at him, that he is the one expected to keep his aunt occupied. It was more than a little insulting, but he does his best to nod his head and pretend he's actually agreeing with them.

Besides, they can't really stop him from helping; not if they want to get the stone, anyway. Because Jeremy has a pretty good idea of where it is now and how to get it.

Elena knows that she must have slept at some point, but as to how long she'd slept for she has no idea.

She knows that after Damon had dropped her off at home last night (and given her a little something extra to help her sleep, of which she'd almost been afraid her moans of pleasure would wake Jenna) she had all but collapsed onto her bed. Everything after that point was blank.

The odd thing was that whether she'd slept at all or not, her mind had been very active, almost to the point where Elena's sure that she's been up all night thinking about everything that has happened in the past 72 hours.

She'd gone over the details of Stefan and Caroline's betrayal and the resulting impromptu road trip with Damon.

She'd relived every kiss, every fiery touch, every pleasurable moment they'd shared as well as thought of all the instances in the past that had led to those moments.

She'd thought about all the ways she'd been lying to herself (for months!) about her feelings for Damon. But most of all she'd thought about what all of it meant for her future; specifically, what truths she has to accept now that she's pretty much thrown herself into the deep end without first checking out how deep the water is.

Truth Number One happened to be the same truth she'd all but avoided while dating Stefan; and that's the fact that Damon is a vampire.

She'd been willing to overlook that fact with Stefan specifically because as much as she thought she'd loved him, they'd sort of had this unspoken agreement between them. She'd never said it out loud, but he'd known that while she accepted his world she didn't actually plan to be part of it.

Perhaps that was what made it a little less shocking for her that Stefan had turned to Caroline in the first place. Because as much as she wanted to be angry at them both, the fact that she wasn't a vampire, (and had no intention of turning) and Caroline is, made their actions almost justifiable.

But Truth Number One could not be so easily avoided now.

Damon wasn't Stefan (as he'd pointed out numerous times in the time she'd known him) and Damon also didn't love easily. His love for her would not allow him to make the same choice that Stefan had made, and he certainly wouldn't accept anything less than forever.

That was just how Damon was; he was passion, excitement and a little bit of danger.

More importantly, when she was with him she felt more alive than she'd ever felt in her young life.

It was hard to admit, but when her parents died a part of her had died too. It was the part of her that had been a bit reckless and, well, fun.

It was the part of her that had felt stifled while she was dating Matt; the part of her that had wanted more out of life. The part of her that hadn't wanted her entire life mapped out the way he had, and the part of her that had wished for a love that would consume her.

She wasn't certain where she'd come up with that idea, but the more she thought about it the more it felt right.

Which is what brought her to Truth Number Two, which she'd tried to deny for months and had only finally just admitted to herself in the last three days: She was in love with Damon Salvatore, and it was a love that consumed her.

It wasn't easy, like her love for Stefan had been.

With Stefan she didn't have to question her feelings; he made her feel safe and she'd needed that after losing her parents. She'd needed the promise that she wouldn't lose anyone else she loved and she could allow herself to fall for him because he was always there for her and couldn't, well, die.

But with Stefan she'd always felt like she couldn't be herself around him; she was some delicate flower he had to protect, and he often concealed truths from her because he didn't think she could handle it.

Damon never pretended with her.

True, she didn't always like what he had to say and didn't always agree with his methods, but he never hid the truth from her. She always knew what he was capable of and he never apologized for it.

It was part of what drew her to him and yet often times she wondered if she was insane because no matter what he did, no matter how horrible his actions, she somehow always managed to forgive him for it.

He had turned Vicki, and she forgave him.

He threatened to turn her back when he was obsessed with getting Katherine out of the tomb, and she'd gone back to him agreeing not only to help him, but actually hugged him as a comfort after they discovered Katherine had never been in the tomb in the first place.

He had nearly killed her brother (and would have, had Jeremy not been wearing the Gilbert ring) and she'd vowed that their friendship was over forever, and yet here they were.

She'd not only forgiven him; she'd run away with him!

She'd slept with him (more than once) and now she had even admitted that she loved him; that she was in love with him.

She didn't know how it was possible after all he had done, but somehow Damon had gotten under her skin, and no matter how much she might have wanted to deny it before, the truth was that she couldn't imagine her life without him in it.

Even if he'd shown up in her bedroom and offered her the chance at a normal life, and compelled her to forget everything, she knew that she'd feel hollow inside; like a part of her soul had been ripped from her.

So that led to Truth Number Three; which was the hardest truth of them all: She had to make a choice, and with that choice would come the biggest sacrifice of her life.

She could continue to pursue things with Damon, knowing everything that he was capable of and choosing to forgive him in spite of everything, and also give up on the chance for a "normal" life forever, or she could walk away.

Truth Number One pretty much implied that she would have to become a vampire at some point, which she'd previously not wanted to consider at all.

Damon wouldn't let her die a human death; in fact, if he'd been faced with that possibility he might just force her to drink his blood so that she would have to come back, and then he'd force her to complete the transition just so he wouldn't have to spend eternity without her.

The fact was that Damon's love for her was so intense as to be almost dangerous; he would literally kill anyone standing in the way of what he wanted, and that went triple for anything that involved her.

He'd sooner watch the world burn if it meant that she would live, and she would forgive him for it because that's how much control he has over her. Which was why the second option, to walk away, was something that she couldn't even think about; no matter how much sense it made, or how much safer it might be to simply end things now and ask for him to compel her memories away, she couldn't do it.

It might be the better option and it might give her the chance to grow up and have a normal life with a normal man, but it wouldn't be real. Life with Damon might be messy and complicated, but it was real; they were real.

Of course, none of that would even matter at all if Katherine succeeded in whatever diabolical scheme she was planning, so before Elena could decide for sure what to do about the whole Damon situation, she needed to play her part in the plan they'd all come up with last night. Mainly that consisted of helping Caroline with decorating for the Masquerade (and pretending that she wasn't still pissed at her for everything she'd said last night).

She had tried; she really had.

Elena had decided upon returning to the boarding house that she would not get into another screaming match with her best friend.

She had told herself that it didn't matter anymore; that she was with Damon and that while Caroline's and Stefan's betrayal had stung, it wasn't really an issue anymore because of what she'd been up to with Damon.

And she had wanted to be happy for them and had really believed that they could get past everything, and she'd been all ready to forgive them and have them apologize.

But Stefan had been like a brick wall, cold and indifferent the second he'd seen her in Damon's arms (Damon really shouldn't have carried her over the threshold like he had, no matter how much she had needed those extra few minutes of sleep).

She'd thought Caroline at least would have been more repentant, but Caroline was stubborn and she could lay the guilt on thick, even worse than Bonnie.

It didn't seem to matter to her (at all) that part of the reason Elena had run off had been her fault. The fact that Elena had run away, leaving everyone else to deal with Katherine, had been a worse betrayal in her eyes than kissing Stefan had been, specifically because as far as she was concerned, Elena would have broken up with him sooner or later anyway.

And besides, what did it matter when she had Damon?

Part of her knew Caroline had a point; in all the drama of denying her feelings for Damon she had sort of taken Stefan for granted. She hadn't been a very attentive girlfriend and it had very little to do with Katherine's threats.

Admittedly she had been using Stefan as a way to distance herself from dealing with Damon, even flaunting their relationship just to hurt him.

Maybe she hadn't meant to, but looking back on the times when she would deliberately kiss him in front of Damon, or when he had asked her to dance shortly after their trip to Atlanta, and she'd turned around and asked Stefan, she could now see that she had been doing just that.

And Caroline had called her out on it, just as she always did whenever she didn't agree with someone's actions. The only difference was that Vampire Caroline was far more assertive than Human Caroline, and therefore could also be a lot blunter when it came to saying exactly what was on her mind.

And worse than being told off by Caroline was when Bonnie had jumped in and basically told Elena the same thing: that running away had been selfish and irresponsible and that she was lucky that no one had been seriously hurt (or killed) while she was off on her little adventure with Damon and ignoring her phone.

Truth be told, Elena had almost wished that she and Damon had remained at the hotel. Life had felt a whole lot simpler. No Katherine, no curses; just her, Damon, and a big bed...

And speaking of Damon...

She rolls over onto her side, immediately inhaling the oh-so-familiar scent of leather and spicy cologne and her eyes flutter open.

A girl could definitely get used to waking up to Damon Salvatore in her bed!

He's lying on the left side of her bed, one arm draped casually over his eyes as if to shield them from the morning light streaming through her bedroom window.

She turns fully to gaze at the perfection; dark hair mussed in a sexy bed-head, a soft half smile playing at his lips that seems almost innocent, and of course she can't help but notice that he's wearing only a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs, and that they do little to conceal what lies beneath them.

"You're staring," Damon murmurs, startling Elena from her silent ogling.

"I'm gazing," she corrects him.

"It's creepy."

"It's romantic," Elena insists.

Damon rolls over onto his side, as if turning away from her will somehow block her staring, and feigns sleep.

"Hey!" Elena protests, smacking him with her pillow.

Damon snatches it from her before it can make contact a second time, tossing it across the room.

Elena is about to get out of bed to retrieve it when she suddenly finds herself on her back with Damon on top of her, and wide awake in more ways than one.

"Where do you think you're going?" he purrs in that sexy seductive, slightly interrogating tone. Before she can answer he dips his head down to capture her lips in a searing kiss that leaves her breathless.

"This is soooo bad of us," Elena moans between kisses.

"Jenna could wake up at any minute!"

"So?" Damon nuzzles her earlobe, nipping playfully.

"So, I'm not supposed to have my boyfriend sleeping over," she points out.

"That's what compulsion is for," Damon shrugs, moving in to kiss the other side of her neck.

"She's drinking Vervain," Elena reminds him. "You can't compel your way out of her walking in on us. Besides, I have to take a shower," she reminds him as he trails kisses down her neck, no doubt to entice her to remain in bed with him.

"Mmm, yes, please," Damon agrees. "That sounds like a fantastic idea. Let's go."

"Not us," Elena corrects. "Me."

Damon sticks out his bottom lip in a sexy pout.

"I'm late," she explains. "I'm on the decorating committee for the Lockwood charity ball."

"Doesn't Caroline usually do those things?" Damon asks pointedly.

Elena sighs in exasperation.

"Yes," she says tersely, "but she asked me and I had already agreed to help out before...everything."

"So cancel," Damon wheedles. "Say you've come down with a sudden fever and need to stay in bed for the next...24 hours or so."

"You know we can't do that," Elena reminds him. "What about Katherine?"

"Katherine who?" Damon asks.

"I'm serious, Damon," Elena rolls her eyes. "We have to stick to the plan."

"What if I don't like the plan anymore?" Damon suggests.

"What if," he grabs Elena and rolls onto his back so that she's now straddling him, "I decided the plan is stupid, and I'd much rather stay here..." he sits up slightly so that his mouth is in perfect line with her neck and collar bone, "and enjoy other things of much more interest to me?"

Damon punctuates the statement by tugging on the neckline of Elena's pink camisole with his teeth, looking up at her with a devilish grin.

Elena pushes against his shoulders with her palms to create some distance.

"No, Damon," she says firmly.

Damon pouts. "You're no fun."

"I'm plenty of fun," she replies cajolingly, squeezing her thighs around his hips for emphasis. "But I'll be even more fun once I know we're all safe, and that means..."

"Yeah, I know," Damon sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes. "Fine, you win. I'll see you at the Lockwood manor."

"Thank you," Elena smiles, knowing she's won the argument.

Damon playfully smacks her on the ass as she moves to climb off the bed.

"Just remember you owe me later," he says, not quite willing to concede defeat; at least not completely.

"We'll see who owes who," Elena gives him a saucy wink as she heads for the bathroom.

Damon watches as the door shuts behind her, then begins the search for his clothes.

He had tossed them carelessly last night when he'd decided to have an impromptu sleepover.

He'd pretended that he had just wanted to pick up where they'd left off, but the truth was that he hadn't felt right about leaving Elena. She'd insisted that she didn't need anyone to protect her, so he'd known that even suggesting that he stay over to make sure she was safe wouldn't have gone over very well.

Stefan had clearly overdone the white knight act and Damon couldn't blame her for not wanting a repeat; after all, he knew she wasn't as fragile as Stefan had made her out to be in his mind.

No doubt that if Katherine showed up, Elena would be able to hold her own against the bitch, or at least she wouldn't make it easy for her. But no matter how strong and feisty Elena might be, Damon still doesn't want to take any chances.

Katherine is unpredictable, and the last thing Damon wants is for his crazy ex to show up and start torturing his new girlfriend just when things are starting to actually go his way for once.

Thankfully last night had been uneventful after they'd returned to her house sometime past midnight, and because Elena was so tired she had passed out after the first orgasm he'd given her.

Normally that would have been a disappointment for him, because Damon has never liked to stop at one, but in this case having her pass out quickly was just what he'd intended.

It made it that much simpler to keep watch over her while she slept rather than attempt to come up with a believable excuse for staying the night when he knew very well that sleepovers with the boyfriend was one of the things Jenna had specifically said was against house rules. He figured that would go TRIPLE now that he was said-boyfriend.

And speaking of Jenna, he can hear her footsteps down the hall, tiptoeing as if she plans to catch Elena in the act.

Had he been human she probably would have caught him with his pants off, or he'd only be able to make it as far as the window before she got the door open, but lucky for Damon he has speed and super powerful hearing on his side.

So by the time that door opened and Jenna poked her head in to make sure the rules weren't being broken, he was already gone.