" Stefan...if you keep pacing like this, you're going to burn a hole in the floor..."
" What I should do is burn a hole in Damon's head. Or burn him entirely altogether. He had-he-I don't-dammit!" Stefan punched the brick wall, and pieces of brick flew everywhere. " I swear to God, if I see him again, I'm going to-"
" Apologize for breaking his shoulder and work this out." Elena took one of his hands and stroked it. " Stefan, this isn't healthy. The longer you stay mad at Damon, the longer he'll stay threatened by you and feel a need to make your life more miserable."
Stefan tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. " When did you become so smart, hmm? I swear, it's like talking to an elderly woman sometimes."
Elena blushed. " You spend enough time with an elderly person, I guess you pick up some of their words of wisdom," she smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
" Hey, are you saying something? You calling me old?" Stefan's eye grew dark, and his lips curled up into a playful snarl.
" Maybe...Eeek!" Stefan pounced on her and kissed her everywhere. " Stefan, stop!" Elena felt something vibrate in her pocket. " My phone's going off! Give me a second-" With all her strength, she pushed Stefan off of her and flipped open her phone. " Hello?"
" Elena! Ohmygosh, did I tell you?"
Elena held the phone a foot away from her ear as Caroline's screaming voice sang out her name. " Tell me what?"
" Oh, good! I didn't tell you yet," Elena could picture Caroline now dancing around her room in her nightgown. " Matt bought tickets to a Marianas Trench concert! AHHH!"
" That's great, Caroline! Just him and you going so far?" Stefan's eyebrows arched as she asked this.
" Um, so far? Well, Bonnie can't go because she said she was busy with something. Your brother won't answer his phone. Uh, who am I missing-oh yeah! Jenna said she'd go too."
" Aunt Jenna?" Elena snorted with laughter. " You're not talking about my aunt, are you?"
" Uh, yeah? Duh, Elena. I'm not going to invite a random Jenna in town," Elena rolled her eyes at this. " Anyhoo, did you want to go? Tickets are like, only $25. Cheaper than last week, and the deadline's tomorrow. You game?"
Elena glanced at Stefan, who shrugged his shoulders and nodded. " Um, sure. Yeah, we'll go. Sounds like fun, Caroline. When is it?"
Something clattered on the other end of the line. " Oh! Darn. Um, what did you say? Uh Saturday, I think. It says on the sign just outside The Grill. Can't miss it. Anyway I gotta go, someone's at the door, so I'll ttyl!" The line went dead.
Elena breathed a laugh as she closed her phone. " You know, I'm glad that Caroline's happy with Matt. She deserves a guy like him, after all she's been through."
Stefan smiled. " I agree. After her encounter with my brother, I'd say she deserves anything better than him."
" Ouch. If I had a heart, it would be broken, little brother." Damon appeared outside the bedroom door, arms crossed over his chest. " Before you ask what I want, because I know that's the question on your mind, I'm going to answer it for you. I'm taking Lily out for a bit."
Stefan got to his feet so fast that it looked like a dark blur to Elena. " You're what? Are you insane, Damon? You saw what she tried to do to Elena! And you're bringing her out into town?"
Damon raised a hand to silence him. " I'm not blind, Stefan. Can you really blame Elena for being so bootylicious?" Damon winked at Elena, who didn't look so pleased at the name he had given her. " She needs to feed, or else she'll die if she doesn't. And! I won't have another dead body in my hands."
Stefan scoffed. " What, the first hundred didn't bother you as much?" He paused for a second. " What's so special about this one, brother? You two share a much longer and darker history and didn't bother to tell us?"
Damon's face grew dark, and even Stefan backed away. " I would rather share history with you rather than that woman, Stefan. No offense."
" None taken..."
As quick as that, a one second smile lit up Damon's sculpted features. " Great! Now that we settled matters, I'm off to town with Lily. We promise to behave," he smirked, and left the room.
Elena looked at Stefan. " You trust him enough to do that?"
" No. I wouldn't trust him with a ten foot pole, my love. It just so happens that today I really think he'll protect the town from this psycho vampire, if she does decide to do some collateral damage." Stefan smiled and collected Elena in his arms. '" Now...where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?"
-The Vampire Diaries-
" Mmm...bakery smells good. Can we go there?"
" No."
" Why not?"
" Because knowing you, you'll ask for A negative as the replacement for jelly inside your doughnut."
Lily gasped dramatically. " How rude! I would never do such-can they really do that, though?" Her eyes grew wide with excitement.
Damon glanced over her before returning his focus on the road. " What do you think, Lily? Humans drinking blood-hmm. Not likely. Besides...this town is anti-vampire. The Founding Families knew about our kind."
Lily shifted in her seat. " Really? How?"
" It started with a girl named Katherine in 1864. People started to mysteriously disappear here, and it aroused suspicion. Once the bodies were recovered, they were found drained of blood and with puncture wounds on the neck."
Lily snorted. " Well, that chick was sloppy! I wouldn't have done that. I would've disposed of the bodies a much neater way."
" Yeah...anyway, they finally connected the killings to her, and it just so happened that both me and my brother were madly in love with her and she was taken from us. As a result, we both died trying to save the girl that didn't give a rat's ass about us. She just wanted...God only knows what she wanted."
" That's sick, dude. I bet you were heartbroken, huh? Bitch came and killed you and all. But you turned out alright, though."
Damon glanced at her, placing the car in park. " What do you mean by that, 'You turned out alright?'"
Lily shrugged. " You're a delicate balance of good and evil. You want so bad to kill me, yet you haven't got the nerve to take a bite of that delicious Elena Gilbert yourself-"
" How do you know her last name?"
" Never mind how I know. As I was saying, you've got a side of you that you let everyone in on the joke, but there's a part that they rarely see you act as at all. It's damn near...human, to say the least." Lily winked at him and kissed him on the cheek. " You can't fool me, Damon Salvatore. I can see that you're still in touch with your humanity, no matter how much you wish to ignore it. It's still there, my good friend."
Damon stared at her in awe as she jumped out of the car and skipped down the road towards The Grill. There must have been something he missed when he changed her. Something important, and she wasn't about to tell him anytime soon. Everything was a game, now. He was a pawn in her obscene game, and she was the queen. If he wanted to get anywhere, he'd have to ask questions, play along; killing her was out of the question. She would have his neck before he could even make a move. She was damn near...something else.
If this was a game she wanted to play, then a game he shall play as well.
