It was odd, seeing Mystic Falls again after four months away. The last time he'd crossed this border, it had been just before he'd driven into a massive explosion that had destroyed the Mystic Grill and killed him.
He hadn't planned on coming back here-mostly because he hadn't thought he'd ever be able to-but now, something was calling him back. Whatever the Gemini coven wanted, whatever his and Enzo's powers were meant to unlock, it was here; he could feel it.
His attention shifted as Enzo came to stand next to him, a dark gleam in his bronze eyes.
"Do you sense it, too?" he asked Damon out of the corner of his mouth, fingers brushing Damon's as his hand curled down by his side.
Damon inclined his head. "This town has been the origin of so many supernatural entities and events that I'm not surprised this Chrysalis thing is here, too. Though I am surprised that I was never able to sense it before, given my connection to it," he mused, still with his gaze fixed straight ahead.
Enzo turned to look at him, their shoulders touching as he moved a little closer-for just that purpose.
"Maybe it was just because you didn't have these powers yet," he suggested. "Or maybe it was being concealed so no one else would be able to find it until we wanted to."
Damon licked his lips thoughtfully; both were valid points, but, in truth, it didn't really matter. All that mattered was why he could sense it now and he was ready to activate it, even if that mean destroying the world as they knew it, as Luke had put it.
"Well," he said, inhaling deeply. "Whatever the reason, I know it's here now-but that doesn't really mean anything if we can't get to it." He looked over his shoulder, meeting Enzo's eyes. "You know how to break that anti-magic barrier now-let's do it."
The corners of Enzo's mouth twitched slightly.
"Well, first you have to be on the other side," he drawled, turning to fully face Damon and jerking his head in the direction of the town. "And then, we're going to need two sacrifices from within."
A single corner of Damon's mouth lifted as he stepped over the town line. "I can do that," he declared confidently.
Enzo tilted his head forward as if to say "go ahead", and Damon took off further into the town, keeping his eye out for any potential sacrifices and feeling a distinct sense of nostalgia.
It was eerily similar to when he'd first returned home five years ago; he'd been looking for people to kill, then, too-victims, tools with which to make trouble for his brother.
And, just like back then, it didn't take him very long to find one.
It was a man that was coming out of the woods surrounding the entry road-a hiker, most likely, judging by the way he was dressed. Not that it really made a difference.
Damon didn't waste time playing games, and immediately pounced on the unsuspecting hiker, wrapping an arm around his throat and yanking him backward.
The man cried out in alarm-but there was no one around to hear him-and instantly began to struggle, but, of course, Damon was too strong for him.
He was unconscious in a matter of seconds, and Damon let him fall to the ground, leaving him lying behind a tree with the intention of picking him up on the way back. That was one down-and one to go.
He returned to the edge of the border about half an hour later, dragging two bodies behind him: the male hiker, and a woman he had attacked in the alley behind where the Mystic Grill had once been, both of whom were currently comatose.
"That was fast," Enzo commented, stepping forward with an unconcealed hint of mirth in dark eyes.
Damon tossed the two bodies carelessly across the border, wiping his hands off on his pants as if he'd just touched something foul. "Well, I am quite highly motivated."
Enzo let out a soft chuckle.
"Well, in that case," he pulled the ceremonial dagger that Jo had given him out of his belt and held it out to Damon. "Care to do the honours?"
"Don't mind if I do," Damon took the knife, and, without any preamble, bent down and slashed open the hiker's throat.
Blood sprayed out across the ground like a fountain, covering the asphalt with crimson-even more so when Damon did the same thing to the woman.
When the blood spread over the town line, Enzo approached it, lowering himself onto one knee and placing his hand, palm down, into the center of it.
There was a faint squelching noise, but Enzo barely heard it. He focused on the familiar sticky warmth, on what this sensation on his skin usually meant: human blood equaled power. And now, it meant being able to absorb the power that was currently keeping him from crossing into Mystic Falls-and destroy it.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling his way past the physical and down to the force behind the anti-magic barrier. He knew it was buried deep;but he also knew that he could find it.
It took some time-he had to get through a lot of Earth and layers of concealment, probably built in to prevent this very thing-but eventually, he managed to get his hands on what he was looking for.
His fingers tingled as they made contact with the magic and began to pull it out of the land and into his body, making him inhale sharply. Like when he'd imbibed some of Damon's power, this was like nothing he'd ever felt before; it put all of his senses and the powers he already had from being a vampire on overdrive and made it feel like he should be dripping fire or electricity from his fingertips.
Well, that wasn't happening, but the ground was beginning to tremble around his hands. He could feel cracks appearing in the street beneath him and knew that it was a result of what he was doing; the travelers' spell was rooted so deep that getting rid of it was bound to have some pretty devastating effects.
But that didn't mean he was going to stop.
He dug in harder, pushing himself to absorb more of the spell; the ground shook harder, and he heard what sounded like things breaking, but he wasn't deterred. He was almost finished-he could feel the spell falling away. He just needed to do one more thing.
"Peredere," the Latin word slipped from his lips without conscious instruction, his accent coming out thick and guttural, making him sound like a completely different person.
There was what sounded like an explosion behind him, and Enzo knew that was it: the last traces of the barrier drained out through his body, and it was gone.
Elena's breath stuttered in her throat as a sudden jolt went through her, causing her to double over slightly.
She grasped the edge of her desk and bit her lip. She'd never felt anything like that before, but somehow, she knew what had caused it: the anti-magic barrier around Mystic Falls had been broken.
Her heart pounded in her ears as she wondered how in the world that could have happened. The last time she'd checked, the only way for it to be broken was by killing one of the doppelgangers, and since she was obviously still alive…
Struck by a horrible thought, she jumped out of her seat and raced out of class without a word to her professor, frantically hitting the second number on her speed dial as she did so.
"Elena?" Stefan's voice came in through the speaker after the fourth ring, and Elena let out a sigh of relief.
"Stefan, thank God," she exclaimed, clutching at her chest.
"Let me guess: you felt the anti-magic barrier break, too, and you thought it was because I was dead," the younger Salvatore surmised knowingly, sounding just as concerned as she had been.
Elena nodded, even though she knew Stefan couldn't see her. "You felt it, too?"
"Yeah," Stefan confirmed darkly. "And I think it might have been because of something Damon did. Those new powers of his-there's no telling what he might be using them for."
Elena inhaled deeply, forcing herself to think about that rationally. A week ago, she wouldn't have even thought that was a possibility-but recent events had definitely changed her perspective on what was possible.
"You were right about Damon, Stefan," she told her ex-boyfriend grimly, gnawing on her lower lip. "I saw him last night, and it was like I didn't even know him anymore; he barely even spoke to me, and he kissed Enzo right in front of me."
Static crackled in her ears as Stefan let out a sigh.
"He did the same thing while he was holding me prisoner," he said, sounding as if the memory was physically painful. "Something definitely happened while he was dead to make him turn again us-and to make him be able to break the anti-magic barrier without killing one of us. Whatever his reason for doing all this, we need to find out."
Elena swallowed hard. As much as she didn't want that to be true, she knew Stefan was right. Whatever was going on with Damon, they couldn't just leave him alone-they had to do something about it-or at least find out what it was.
"Okay," she agreed, letting out a heavy, reluctant breath. "Caroline already knows what's happening, so I just need to talk to Alaric and then I can get going."
She heard Stefan take a deep breath as well. "I'll meet you there, then," he replied, not sounding at all happy about it, before the line went dead.
Elena pressed the "END CALL" button on her phone screen, her heart still racing as she gripped the device tightly. Everything was just happening too fast; one minute, she was grieving Damon's death, and the next he was somehow back, but acting at all like the one who'd died. She was just having a lot of trouble coming to grips with all of it.
After about a minute of stewing in her thoughts, she forced herself to move. She knew standing there wasn't going to make things any better; it wasn't going to help her understand what was happening any better. Unfortunately, there was only one way to do that: she had to go home.
Jo walked into the room, holding up her cellphone so all of its occupants could see the screen.
"They've broken the barrier-they're back in Mystic Falls," she announced with unconcealed satisfaction, her aquamarine eyes gleaming beneath her dark lashes.
Across from her, Lucy's dark-skinned features morphed into a similar expression.
"That means everything is in place; with one more sacrifice and the former hunter's help, we'll finally be able to find what we've been looking for."
"You really think Saltzman will help them? He is the doppelganger's guardian, and, as you said, a former vampire hunter," Julian quipped, arching a skeptical eyebrow.
Neither Lucy nor Jo's smiles wavered.
"He's also the elder Salvatore's best friend and the man I'm currently seeing," Jo pointed out confidently. "I'm sure, between the two of us, we'll be able to convince him of the benefits of our plans-for him as well as us."
Julian's other eyebrow rose to join the first.
"So, does that mean you know the full extent of the effects that unlocking the Chrysalis will have? Because I don't remember the legends going into that much detail," he quipped, feeling a distinct sense of bemusement.
Jo, Liv and Luke all shared a brief, covert look.
"We may know a bit more than we've been letting on," Luke admitted. He got up from his chair, crossing the room to where the other warlock stood and placing his hand on top of Julian's. "We wanted the rest of you to just be focused on the big picture, not all the little aspects of it."
Julian folded his arms across his chest.
"You can't really expect to keep a coven together by omitting things-especially things like this. That isn't the way to get people to trust you," he said angrily.
He tried to shake Luke's hand off, but the blonde just squeezed his harder.
"Well, if it's that important for you to know, I guess it's time I show you," he declared, pressing his thumb over the vein in Julian's wrist, before leaning in close and whispering an incantation:
"Aperi oculos."
Before Julian could say a word, his vision was suddenly consumed by blackness; then, the dark was broken by lines of blue, like shards of ice.
He saw the town of Mystic Falls through the cracks-only it looked different from the last time he'd been there.
The buildings appeared older, and more dilapidated; the famous Mystic Grill was completely absent, its place taken by a curved, archaic-looking tower made out of some kind of glimmering, dark blue stone.
And that wasn't all: outside the town's border, there were even more changes. The trees in the woods were more gnarled and sinister, and frost covered the ground like a thin blue-ish blanket that stretched as far as the eye could see.
As Julian gazed upon all of this, he started to understand why Luke and his siblings might have thought keeping this from him was a good idea; he was no big fan of the world the way it currently was, but to cause an evolution of this magnitude? They probably thought he wouldn't be a big fan of that, either-and they would have been right.
Mystic Falls will not be the only place affected; the entire world will shift into a new state-one that empowers all those who walk in the darkness, with the elder Salvatore and his partner at the top of the food chain.
It will be their world-and the witches'.
Julian heard what sounded like a clap of thunder reverberate within his ears, and then he was back in the meeting room, half-slumped against the wall and looking up at Luke.
The blonde warlock touched his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Julian straightened up slowly, pressing his hand flat against the wall to help steady himself. "Was that real?" he questioned, frowning slightly.
"It's what the original legend of the Chrysalis says will happen once it's unlocked," Jo answered matter-of-factly. "It will give us a world where people like us don't have to hide anymore, where we will be the ones in charge and not slaves to humans or nature or anything else. I know you and a few of the others are rather new to this, but doesn't that sound good?"
It did, Julian had to admit-almost too good to be true. He realized that was probably another reason why Jo, Liv and Luke hadn't been totally open with the rest of the coven; they probably didn't want to hear about the newer members' reasons for thinking their dreams might not happen-or about who might try to stop them.
Well, now it hardly mattered what they thought; all that mattered was that the ones with the power to make all of it a reality knew the truth-and they were on board.
It had all lead up to this. Everything he had gone through as a human and as a vampire, all of the heartbreak and turmoil and suffering had been pushing him toward this point. This was where he was always supposed to end up; this was his destiny.
Being back in the boarding house was even stranger than being back in town; at first glance, everything inside looked the same-but it didn't feel that way. Especially not after all the changes he'd gone through lately.
Nothing remains the same
That ritual the Gemini coven had performed had one more than awaken Enzo's powers and reveal the witches' hand in orchestrating the events that had brought him and Enzo here; it had altered him in ways he'd never considered, allowed him to see things he never had.
As he cast his gaze around at the familiar surroundings in his bedroom, he realized that this wasn't home anymore; the memories all of this evoked, the things it made him think of, they weren't him anymore. He wasn't the person he'd been the last time he'd sat in this room-that man had thought of nothing but Elena Gilbert, and had even gone so far as to suppress who he was just to make her happy.
The corners of Damon's mouth twitched as he thought about how mercurially different he was now; Elena was no longer the only one on his mind. In fact, she was no longer there at all-and he wanted to keep it that way.
Fortunately, he wasn't going to have to try very hard.
He heard the tell-tale sounds of footsteps approaching the room, but he didn't turn around; he didn't have to. The preternatural connection he had with his new partner let him know who was now standing in his doorway without doing so.
"I called Jo and told her that we brought the barrier down," Enzo informed him, his footsteps coming close and stopping right behind Damon. "What have you been doing?"
Damon wasn't immediately forthcoming with a response, running his fingers over his old bedspread and leaving a second blanket of frost in their wake as he considered.
"Just thinking," he replied, at last meeting Enzo's gaze with a faint gleam in his azure eyes and hand still on top of his mattress as he nodded towards it. "There are a lot of memories here-and I was thinking you might like to help me make some new ones."
Enzo's face heated slightly as Damon leaned in, almost touching their noses together. His lips tilted upward at the drop in Damon's tone as he made the suggestion, recognizing the double meaning there.
"Well, I suppose we do have some time to kill before Jo and her friends get here," he feigned thoughtfulness, voice lowering as well as he ghosted his mouth over Damon's eyes simmering beneath his dark lashes.
Damon's eyes flashed, and he didn't waste anymore time before closing what little distance remained between them and claiming Enzo's lips.
The other vampire chuckled huskily, hands coming up to grip at the front of Damon's coat and tug him in, bringing their chests flush against one another.
Damon growled at the sudden contact, and he retaliated by sliding his own hands down to Enzo's hips and slipping his knee in between Enzo's thighs.
A low moan fell out of the other vampire's mouth, and Damon felt a rush of satisfaction at the sensation of Enzo hardening against his leg. Knowing Enzo wanted this just as much as he did, he deepened the kiss, teeth biting at Enzo's lips, making them part so he could plunge his tongue inside.
Enzo groaned again, mouth opening further to suck hard on Damon's tone while he pushed his hands under Damon's coat, dragging them down his chest and abdomen before going for his belt buckle.
It was Damon's turns to huff out a laugh when he felt Enzo undoing his jeans and tugging them down his legs-not to be outdone-but the amusement turned into even fiercer arousal when Enzo broke their kiss to sink to his knees in front of him and latch his mouth onto Damon's lower abdomen.
His eyes darkened as Enzo left open-mouthed kisses all along his stomach, lips moving steadily lower and lower.
"Enzo," he let out a strangled groan of his own when Enzo's lips suddenly wrapped around his cock, sucking even harder than they had on his tongue.
Shocks of pleasure ran through him and he had to struggle not to fall over with the force of it. He'd had this done to him by other guys before, but this was different. Enzo wasn't just any other guy, and the sight of him on his knees, sucking him off, was even more of a turn on than the act itself.
His fingers raked though the younger's short hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp, while he watched with hooded eyes as Enzo took him even deeper. He hissed at the unexpected sensation of fangs grazing his shaft; he had no idea that could feel so good.
"Fuck," he growled, hips jerking involuntarily. He didn't think he was going to last very long-especially if Enzo kept doing that thing he was doing with his tongue.
Unable to take it anymore, he tightened his grip on Enzo's hair, yanking him back up so he could slot their mouths together again.
Enzo's smirk returned as Damon slammed him up against the far wall, pulling roughly at his hair and practically devouring his mouth. His teeth sank into Enzo's bottom lips, nipping at it roughly to the point where the skin broke, filling both their mouths with the taste of iron.
Enzo's world spun as Damon's tongue came out to lap at the blood that pooled on the surface, and he pulled the elder-if possible-even closer by the front of his shirt, nearly tearing the material in the process.
Damon pressed more firmly against him, tongue slipping into Enzo's mouth again to roam the now familiar territory thoroughly, while his hands shoved at Enzo's jacket, pushing it off his shoulders.
Enzo shrugged it off, throwing it aside as it slid off the ends of his arms, before moving his hands back to Damon's hips, gripping them hard enough that he would have left bruises-if Damon was one to bruise.
Damon let out an approving hum, shedding his own coat, then momentarily breaking their kiss to pull his shirt over his head and toss it to the floor.
Enzo moved his hands up again, smoothing them over the newly bared skin, while Damon's curled around his t-shirt, ripping the fabric apart like it was nothing.
When they were both shirtless, Damon's fingers dug into Enzo's sides, stroking down before hooking in the waistband of his jeans and pushing them off-along with his boxers.
Enzo grunted as Damon broke their kiss again to turn him around, pushing his front roughly against the wall.
"Say it," he intoned harshly, hot breath rushing past Enzo's ear, voice so low and dark that Enzo hardly recognized it-but instead of alarming him, it only served to heighten his arousal further.
The other vampire tilted his head to the side. "Make me," he retorted cheekily, flicking his tongue between Damon's lips.
The words turned into another groan when he felt two of Damon's slick fingers pushing past his inner walls and entering him with no warning. He didn't protest, though, just spread his legs further to better accommodate them, shifting his hips to take them even deeper.
"Let's try that again, shall we?" Damon said in a deceptively light tone, dragging his teeth across Enzo's shoulders and twisting his fingers in a way that made Enzo's whole body jerk.
He ran his tongue over the throbbing vein at the base of Enzo's neck, biting at the skin there before repeating himself. "Say it."
It was only because he was perfectly fine with playing this game that he finally obeyed. "Damon, please," he panted, rocking his hips back as Damon added a third finger.
He bit his lip as Damon gave his fingers one last twist before withdrawing them and replacing them with something much bigger.
It was bliss as usual, being inside Enzo, feeling the heat of his bare skin and his ass clenching tightly around him. Damon had never felt this turned on by anyone before; he'd never craved anyone besides Enzo like this before.
Things only became more intense when he started moving, pulling out nearly all the way before slamming back in. The noises Enzo made were positively intoxicating, and Damon wanted to hear him make more.
Enzo threw his head back, and Damon took advantage of his exposed throat, fangs sinking into the offered flesh, hard enough to puncture it; at the same time, he reached around and held his wrist up to Enzo's mouth, pressing it against his fangs.
The warm gush of blood filling his mouth combined with the feeling of his own blood being pulled from his body sent his arousal to all new levels, and his thrusts turned into harsh, claiming ones.
Just when he thought it couldn't get any better, Damon found that spot inside Enzo, and Enzo saw white. He could feel himself practically dripping pre-cum, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer.
He keened, pulling away from Damon's wrist to breathe when Damon's other hand wrapped around his aching erection and began to pump it in time with his thrusts.
That was Enzo's breaking point; he came with a shout, calling out Damon's name as he spilled over Damon's fingers and the wall.
He clenched even harder around Damon, and the other vampire joined him less than a minute later, smearing bloody kisses over the underside of his chin and whispering his name like a prayer as he filled him to the brim.
They rode out the aftershocks together, slowly sinking to the floor as the last waves faded. Damon slumped over beside Enzo, tongue trailing over his still-bloodstained lips as he watched the other vampire come down from his post-orgasmic high.
Enzo had said that the bright side of all of this was that neither of them would have to worry about losing the other again; but, laying there, with Enzo next to him, Damon realized he'd been wrong. This was the bright side-this, Damon wouldn't trade for anything.
wow that was my longest chapter yet. honestly though that last scene had no point other than to pad the word count so. Hope you enjoyed the pointless denzo smut :p