That which you fear the most can meet you halfway

-Pearl Jam

#

He woke up with the devil calling his name.

The ferocious grind of garbage trucks driving up Elliot Avenue shook him first before the shrill peal of the telephone in his bedroom. Damon peeled open one crusty eye looking around the murky room. The drapes were drawn but a splinter of silver light cut through reflecting off a mess of beer cans on the table. Motes of dust danced soberly in the filtered trace of sunlight, slowly spinning onto the hardwood floor. He'd crashed on the couch because he hadn't been able to stand the creeping shadows and the grapey stench the girl had left on his sheets.

"This better be good, "his voice croaked into the receiver after he had peeled himself off the sofa and slithered into the dank bedroom.

"I heard about your gig last night."

It was his old manager in New York, the same one who'd ceremoniously dumped him after that hotel room fiasco. The hotel room tragedy that had robbed him of his career, stripped him of his spirit and left him a bottomless hole. It bruised his ego to admit that his bandmates had dismissed him so he lied and told people he had fired his manager. It sounded better.

It also absolved him of his guilt about the girl and that fateful night.

"There's a band down there, "Neil continued "they're looking for a bass guitarist"

"I'm not interested ma-"

"The band's Restless Soul"

Damon paused, his mind reeling with shock…then doubt. He had grown up listening to the notorious grunge rock band, heck he even had gritty posters of them on his walls. Restless Soul had been his alchemist. Neil had to be mistaken. He was a nobody, a hack, a has been trying to find salvation in the Seattle rock scene. He was not Restless Soul material.

"Damon, you still there?' Neil cried over bustling traffic.

"Yeah, "he replied his voice still raspy from shock.

"Grab a pen; call the guy when you find the time in your hectic schedule"

Damon didn't miss the sarcasm in Neil's voice. He followed the orders begrudgingly scribbling the number down on a takeout napkin, not sure he wanted to join a band so soon after New York. He hung up, rubbed the sleep from his worn-out eyes and then he saw the brown bag again. He licked his chapped lips and scrubbed his hand over his bristled chin trying to distract his wayward thoughts.

Heroin was a higher calling, a fuck you to reality and a dream within a dream. He knew that he could do it, right then and there he could strap up, find a vein and juice himself up till he was lying down in a happy yellow sunshine puddle.

Neil was right; he needed to get the monkey off his back. He got up, ripped the sheets off the mattress and hauled the bare thing into the lounge living the base standing in the bedroom. Damon proceeded to stuff the dirty sheets and his filthy laundry into two green duffel bags.

It was bucketing again. The rain drops bounced off his truck, mud sluicing down the cracked windscreen. His screeching wipers flooded dirt in an uneven wash on the foggy glass. He braked for an elderly couple waddling across the wet road, trying to toddle in between the raindrops.

He was loathed to admit it but he was lonely.

Maybe what he needed was a pet, like a cat. He needed a feline with eyes as green as those misty evergreen trees shimmering in the rain to his left. Perhaps he needed a kitten with eyes as green as that Mainstay magazine lady, Bonnie something. He cracked his neck as a smirk curled across his flushed face. Say her name Damon Salvatore, he told himself. He'd looked at it long enough to recite it like a prayer.

Bonnie Bennett.

Bonnie Bennett, the minx with wild evergreen eyes.

#

Bonnie had always had a thing for musicians since that time in the fifth grade musical when Jeremy Gilbert had sang Led Zeppelin's Since I've been loving you while starring down at her the entire time. He had been her first love up until he kissed some blonde blue-eyed cheerleader behind the bleachers after a home game. Then there had been that unfortunate incident with a tuba player during senior year and by the time she carted off to college in New York she had put off dating musicians forever.

Forever didn't last that long.

She watched Kol over her morning coffee as he packed his sheet music in his brown leather satchel. He was always pensive when he was preparing for a piano recital, always trying to surpass his last concert and attempting to prove something to himself. Bonnie knew that he was trying to prove himself to his father Mikael, another Julliard alumnus. Kol never talked about him but Bonnie had picked up the tenor of the relationship in their eclectic conversations about each other's childhoods. She had never met Kol's father and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

So now she was here, having moved to damn Seattle because of Kol. He was her only family since her Gran died.

"You going to the office today?"

"Yeah, "she nodded taking a sip "I have to write that Salvatore review and hand it in by noon"

"Ouch"

"I'll be gentle, "she chuckled "I'm over it. I listened to his gig last night and he wasn't half bad...maybe great"

"So you don't think he's a see- you- next- today anymore?'

"I love your filthy sailor mouth" Bonnie teased pulling him by his denim shirt, kissing him so that he could savour the lingering trace of coffee in her mouth.

"He's still a chauvinistic ass but who cares, aren't all those rocker flunkies fallible?" she smiled brushing his cleft chin.

"Guess you don't hold him accountable for that overdose incident?" he asked with a wink and a dimpled grin as he tucked himself into a frumpy tweed jacket that screamed piano geek.

"Alas, "she shrugged "that is a truth we'll never know. Apparently that question is off limits during interviews"

"And since the two of you get along like a house on fire, you won't be getting any interview any time soon"

"C'est la vie "

"Later," Kol pressed his moist lips to her forehead before exiting the apartment, living her glaring down at the piano hindering any graceful movement in their tiny apartment. She took a deep breath, finished her coffee and packed their dirty laundry into black refuse bags.

She planned to pass through the laundromat before facing Christine's wrath about the Damon Salvatore interview that would never take place.