He lets the door close behind him before turning his head toward the manor hall.
Bonnie is there sitting on his leather sofa, feet tucked under her, while Stefan stands in front of her. To meet her eyes, his little brother gets down on one knee and puts both his hands at her sides - on the cushions of the sofa- looking at her with that mastered I'm here for you expression of his.
Damon is not allowed to wear that expression in front of her because that would get him her immediate distrust. He could never touch her like that without her flinching or, more probably, burning his brain until his visual goes black.
"There is no rush," he says, gently, "we can do this slowly."
It bothers him that she can accept Stefan's support – his fucking hands – while he's barely allowed to be in her presence.
"Or you can just not do it at all," he cuts in before Bonnie can reply to his little brother, "Which I strongly suggest".
"Damon," Stefan raises his head to meet his eyes over Bonnie's shoulders, then gets up, "Bonnie and I are… working on her powers," he explains, trying to make it look like this situation never occurred before.
It's like having to work around a script, and it feels strange.
"Sounds fun, maybe I can help," Damon pipes walking around the sofa to look at her, whom seems not happy at all with his suggestion.
"Well-"
"I can do without," she answers before Stefan can say anything.
"Sure, it sounds just like that."
Bonnie gets up, already irritated and ready to leave "Stefan I think I'm just going to-"
"Give up because I'm too damn stubborn and proud to let Damon help me," Damon says mimicking a feminine voice.
Stefan brings one hand to cover his face, wishing he could hide from the upcoming disaster. One of this days he needs to inform Damon that diplomacy would not kill him.
"You have some nerve! Like you are ever the one to help me instead of the other way around!"
"I'm here trying to change the trend if you haven't noticed," he says, "I'll have to admit there's only so much gratitude I can manage towards your Judgy persona so I thought I'd volunteer my service."
"You can go and offer your service to someone else."
"They all had it and liked it, sweetie!"
"You're such a dick," she says, gritting her teeth.
"I have such a-"
"Time out!" Stefan steps into their verbal aggression with his hands high, mimicking a T.
"Don't pull her hair," he says looking at his brother, "Don't throw him toys," he says to Bonnie, treating them like they are spoiled children throwing a tantrum, "Let's play nice, shall we?" Somewhere in the back of his mind resounds the word foreplay but he doesn't want to think of that. It's disturbing.
"Please, sit," he says, sitting down and waiting for Bonnie and Damon to do the same. Once they soon conceded, still staring each other down, Stefan continues to speak.
"So, we were trying to channel her powers to work on a telepathic communication… we just seem to be missing something. You think you can help?"
Damon doesn't move his eyes from Bonnie as he listens and then answers "Probably."
Bonnie's attention is hooked but her expression is hard.
"I once knew this witch. A feisty little thing, quite flexible and with a round-"
"On topic!" Bonnie reminds him, trying to cover her embarrassment. Really? She thinks; can he be any more disgusting? He's like a child who loves to jump on his parent's bed even if they told him a million times not to. Except that it's her nerves he jumps on.
Damon grins, "Sorry. I was reminiscing."
"Reminisce another time," she warns him.
"So, this witch I knew. She could telepathically converse with vampires-"
"Only with vampires?"
"I can't really tell. It came handy with vampires, and humans are generally a lot easier to trace down."
"How did she open the channel?" she asks, eager to have her answers.
"Well, she needed to concentrate on the feelings arose from the ones she wanted to communicate with. The most elemental ones," he explains, watching her nod as she takes it in.
She pursued her lips, processing his suggestion. It seems harmless enough so she moves her eyes on Stefan - ready to try and communicate with him – takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.
Stefan and Damon look at each other and the younger Salvatore mouths do something, opening both hands and gesturing towards the witch. Damon grimaces trying to think of something to say, as fast as he can.
"That's your look of concentration?" he asks, in a rush, "It looks more like you're having a sexual fantasy."
"Shut up," she warns him as her jaw tightens.
"You're already at the good part?" he asks, whispering.
Bonnie's eyes snap open and she asks in the same tone "Weren't you trying to help?"
"I can multitask, I can help you with both things at the same time," he answers, all wide-eyes and innocent, as her eyebrows were furrowed together.
"What both-"but Bonnie stops herself before finishing her sentence and points her index towards him "Don't. Don't say it."
Damon smiles and bats his lashes, just to annoy her.
"You drive me crazy!" she says gritting her teeth, and closing both her fists at her side.
"I'm good like that," he says, nodding.
Bonnie lets herself fall back against the cushions of the sofa and shakes her head, bent back so she can see the ceiling. A growl comes out from the back of her throat.
"Are we feeling lazy?"
"No, we're feeling murderous," she answers, looking back at him.
"Stop trying to turn me on, little bird," he accuses her.
She brings both her hands to cover her face. I'm so going to kill you, she promises, I swear, it's like dealing with a sex addicted child with an attention deficit hyperactive disorder. Will Ritalin work on a 150 year old vampire?
"I'm 148 years old," he clarifies, "And I like to call it a healthy sexual appetite"
Bonnie takes her hands away from her face, and looks at him wary.
"I didn't say a word."
"But I heard you all the same," he says, smiling.
She rolls her eyes, looking up and murmuring to herself "I want to die."
#
Alaric closes the door behind him and looks around the room. He's not picky and he will not stay here for long, but he's not thrilled about spending the night in a filthy motel because Damon insisted him to without telling him the reason.
He trusts Damon but he's neither a puppet nor a child and the situation is not appealing. His friend gave him a string bracelet and insisted for him to stay out of town for one night. They argued for half an hour and then Alaric decided to humor him.
After all, knowing him, it's not really the worst thing he could ask him. At least now he owes him; maybe he can uses this as leverage the next time Damon decides to do something very stupid. Which happens twice a day.
"Oh, well," he says to the empty room, looking at his left wrist.
He guesses Bonnie has something to do with it since Damon insisted that that string bracelet will protect him. From what, he doesn't know.
#
When she opens the front door of her house she's not surprised at all to meet his cocky grin; he would never pass up an opportunity to annoy her and that grin does exactly that to her. It makes something in her stomach burn and her expression gets hard because of it.
What she's not expecting is for him to look so dashing into his suits. Damon is wearing a three pieces jazz suit made with aslim-fit frock coat and severely tapered high-water trousers coat, a five button vest, and a button-fly trouser, which looks made-to-measure. The black fabric and the light tie makes the color of his eyes more intense.
It's unnerving, truly.
The only reaction she allows herself is batting her lashes twice, with a bored look on her face, like she's wishing he'd disappear in front of her. She's not that lucky.
"You're not inviting me in?" he asks candidly, and she curves her lips into a derisive grin.
"Funny. Try again," she answers as she turns to take her purse and home keys.
Bonnie closes the front door, making sure it's locked and turns around to face a box Damon places on the palm of her open hand right above his heart. With an agile movement of his fingers he makes the box open without using his other hand, bent behind his back.
She's tempted to ask if he has a weapon hidden but it's an unlikely possibility, and the corsage lying inside the box grasps her attention. It's a beautiful white orchid with a tiny jewel in the middle, and she looks at it cautiously.
"It's not going to bite," Damon says, making her straighten up, like Bonnie's ready to defend herself from a sudden attack.
"You shouldn't have."
"It's no problem," he shrugs.
"No, I mean it," she spells, "you shouldn't have. We are going to spend a limited amount of time together just out of necessity. I'm not thrilled or happy about this, and once the night is over I'm going to forget it ever happened."
"Sounds familiar," he mutters to himself, rolling his eyes.
"I see what's so enticing about you. You can sweet-talk your way into anything," he says, sarcastically, gaining a dirty look.
Damon takes the corsage and hands her the box with a "here", pushing it against her palms, ready to pin it on her.
She looks outraged by his mere intention and starts to protests "If you think I'm going to let you-"
"Shhh," he hushes her and speaks with a low tone, looking firm and serene, "Keep it up and I'm going to do a lot of thinking, and I can guarantee you that it would be the kind you'd be embarrassed about," he says, fixing his eyes into hers, "I imagined you would have felt more comfortable with my little token if it didn't need to be pinned anywhere near your very agreeable curves, so…" he doesn't finish his speech as he rises his hands to her hair and bends his head to softly pin the orchid into her tamed curls.
Bonnie stands still as he performs this little ritual. And she can swear she can feel the touch of his fingertips, and the smell of cologne on his skin. In this position she can see the seaming of his clothes and the way the vest fits perfectly over his thorax. Damon towers over her, fixing the flower in her hair with unbearable slow care and she cannot remember to breathe.
Her eyelashes tremble but that's all the emotion she permits herself while waiting for him to be finished.
"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?" he asks, with a strangely hoarse voice, taking a step back to look down into her eyes.
"It's a question of perspective," she answers, wishing she could sound harsher.
"Really?" he asks back, shrugging casually, "Well, from my perspective everything's fine. My taste is impeccable," and then his tone sounds even and yet impossibly gentle, "I have an eye for beautiful things."
And for a moment she feels like a teenager – who she is, really, if anyone would ever remember that every now and then - and she would like to ask him if he's talking about the corsage or her, only she's not going to ask that because it would be stupid. Like Damon can ever pay her a compliment.
The best thing coming out from his mouth is usually some kind of twisted approval about her powers, just to diminish her two seconds later just because. More importantly, no one can ever compare to Elena in his eyes. Anything hinting to the contrary, or to the mere fact he doesn't find her bad on the eyes, would be a trap. A way to buy a favor or two.
This is Damon Salvatore, after all, and she's not going to fall for his tricks.
#
The cable broadcasts a limited selection of channels. When he's almost tempted to buy a wearable sleeping bag he realizes it's time to change channels.
He surfs the channels and finds a very loud, very boring porn, a cooking show for vegans, and a boy with glasses as thick as bourbon glasses talking about the least watched movie of the history of cinema - Zyzzyx Road. The director, a guy called John Penney, filmed it in 2006; the movie cost two million dollars and cashed thirty bucks. When they show the trailer he recognizes the girl from Roswell and Grey's Anatomy, but the movie looks so bad that he's bored already after the first fifteen seconds of the thing. She screams and jumps out of the bed and the scream looks fairly real. In fact, when he mutes the TV the screaming goes on.
In the room next to his a girl begs and he wonders for a moment if it's just some kind of role play between lovers, but then he hears a bump against the wall and a whining sound and he gets up from the bed and leaves the room.
Everything happens very fast. He skims the face of the man with a black eye and a bleeding nose and goes to the girl, all curled up on her side, wearing cheap lingerie and a look older than her actual age.
The man, who looks to be in his late forties, throws a few useless threats his way as he picks up his clothes from the ground but shuts up immediately when Alaric looks back.
"I'm going to call an ambulance," he says to the girl, but she shakes her head and begs him not to.
"No, please, no. No one can know. Please."
She's still shocked; holding on to one of his arms and her face is tear-stained and smeared with her black mascara.
He's trying to calm her down when the man takes the lamp from the nightstand and tries to smash it on his head.
Alaric shelters himself with his left forearm and manages to divert the blow making the lamp smash against the opposite wall.
The only thing that keeps him from running after the man fleeing from the room is the cry of the pitiful girl holding on to him.
It takes him almost half an hour to calm her down and convince her to consider reporting the man; she was looking for love, or more probably a father figure and she found this. A man whom manipulated her and abused her and left her bruised even where the eye can't look.
He buys her something to eat even if she's just starving for care, and helps her clean herself up.
When he leaves the room, accompanying her outside where the cab is waiting for her, the string bracelet is on the floor.