Chapter Text
Deliberately firm, a hand presses into where he is sore, where the curve of ass meets thigh. Damon sighs at the pressure. He is face down on the bare sheets, the ones he will make Enzo responsible for cleaning later, as it is his magical doohickey and his hands and fangs that spilt so much blood—save, maybe, the bite marks and scratches Damon had left on him, though between the reduction in strength and Enzo’s healing, they’d barely bled.
Everything aches. Lingering, skin and muscle and bones tender in a way that edges pleasurable, balances it against a deep set soreness. Novelty even after the last blur of hours, still a unique enough sensation to be reveled in, he enjoys it, laid out on bloodstained and torn sheets, caught and kept, an offering already devoured. Muscle stretches tender, wounds stinging. Sparks of shivering pain on marked skin play consistent and constant reminder, just as the solid weight of the cuff on his wrist does.
Enzo briefly presses harder, as if to reinforce bruises that are surely already blossoming, or maybe he’s just enjoying watching skin blanch paler under burst capillaries before flushing pink with pressure marks before he abates, and says, “Bath now, love?”
Whatever noise Damon makes, he must take as confirmation, because Damon is scooped, twitching, brain and body meshed static, up into his arms. Pain sparks anew. A few scabs pop.
Consequences of enthusiastic sex with a vampire when one does not currently possess a vampire’s healing.
Or strength.
Even if he struggled and fought, he couldn’t get away. Then or now. The cuff is still on his wrist; Enzo the only one who can remove it.
Damon relaxes further at the thought, that even if he tries, he couldn’t get away.
That Enzo wouldn’t let him go.
It’s a nice day.
Earlier rain cleared up, the sun is out, if on its way to setting. A breeze pleasantly diffuses some of the lingering heat, the first time in a week it’s been anything but chilly. To make it truly idyllic, they’d need some birds tweeting about, but the only bird call is a crow’s, one of the ones Stefan suspects has nested in one of the giant trees on the property. It greets them mockingly as they pass underneath it.
“Hello,” Elena calls back. There’s a rustle of black feathers and yellow-orange leaves as it hops to turn to watch them go.
“You talk to crows now?” Stefan asks, arm in arm with her.
Her smile is better than any autumn afternoon. “Too weird?”
“It’s cute,” he corrects. Her blush neatly compliments her smile. If some ever-hungry part of him notices the flush in her cheeks, the uptick in her heart beat, the rush of blood in her veins—well, he does not give it attention, does not feed it.
“—to the mirror,” Caroline is saying behind them, shopping bags swinging in her hands as she demonstrates something to Bonnie.
She wants to string lights across a wall mirror, between decorative flowers and leaves—and they’d spent most of Saturday morning combing shop after shop after store looking for the perfect ones. After they dropped by the early morning farmer’s market out of town; yawning in the car and Bonnie clutching a coffee cup like a teddy bear, going just to go and poke around the stalls. On the way back, they stopped by a diner for lunch. And then they stopped by a bakery, because Caroline needed to check on the cupcakes she’d ordered for a school event. When Stefan had asked if a teacher shouldn’t be doing this instead, he’d gotten an impassioned rant about cupcake quality and two frantically shaking heads, not in that order.
It’s been a long day, but a fun one.
Stefan had been a little surprised that their plans started so early in the morning, but Elena had explained it as Caroline having a schedule to keep and a plan that involved being well ahead of it. He’d gotten his breakfast before dawn—a brace of rabbits and the fox sniffing around the kill site—and met them at Caroline’s house.
“Fire hazard,” Bonnie repeats, for the third time in the last hour. Caroline ignores her, just as she had the last two times.
Elena and Stefan, each with their own shopping bags in hand, exchange less exciting conversation as they walk up the drive to the porch, centered more on homework than interior decorating.
It’s dropped as they climb the steps and see how the door sits open, empty frame somehow portentous.
Stefan goes to meet Elena’s eyes, but finds her attention elsewhere. He follows it to a bundle of flowers almost underfoot, a mess of blooms, some crushed. No bones amongst them, he’s glad to see. Something about the mangled remains brings to mind a murder scene, regardless. For a second, less than, before he blinks it away, pulped, sweet-smelling flowers transform into pulped, sweet-tasting flesh.
It takes the scuff of a sneaker on the porch for him to snap out of the memory.
Bonnie and Caroline have both made it up the stairs.
“What’s—?” starts Caroline, but falls silent when Stefan brings a finger up to his lips.
When he listens, he hears music coming from upstairs—it’s not a song he recognizes, but it is something Damon would like, heavy baseline and crooning, baleful lyrics.
“Damon?” he calls into the open door, dropping his stuff beside the mat. “You home?”
There’s no answer. He waits a moment, then says, “If you’re dead, I’m taking your car.”
The music does not pause.
Alright.
Silently, Stefan pushes the door open further. “I’ll see you later,” he tries. He doesn’t know what’s going on—but there’s a twisting in his gut that says something is happening.
The trio of teenage girls ignore him.
“Stalker alert,” sings Caroline, nudging the flowers with the toe of her flats.
Bonnie silently sets her bags down on the porch. Her lips have fallen into a frown, a change from the almost carefree demeanor she’s had today—a thing Stefan had uncomfortably realized was getting rarer and rarer as of late. It’s shouldn’t have been strange to see her face cast in smile rather than casting a bloody-nosed spell.
Elena, phone in hand, says, “Ric’s on the way—should I tell him to speed?”
“I can—“
“We’re not leaving you alone, Stefan,” Caroline very neatly cuts him off and deposits her bags next to Bonnie’s, clear of stray petals. “Deal with it.”
He eyes each determined face. “It could be nothing.”
“Then it’s nothing,” says Elena, evenly. “And we go grab smoothies from that place on Main and quiz Care for her Sport Med test on Monday. And if it is something—E, Katherine popping back up, someone else, then you have back up.”
In a last ditch effort, he says, “It’s probably nothing.”
“If it’s nothing,” Bonnie chimes in, and Stefan nearly jolts when she steps closer, some kind of energy in the air, rising off of her like a heat wave. “Then it’s nothing. If it’s something, it stops here.”
He gives up, then, and leads the way into the house. The music doesn’t stop, just rises in pitch and fervor. By the time they make it down the entry hall, Stefan’s shoulders are tense. They’ve passed by more than one bouquet, sitting in well watered vases, and each one made his uneasiness worsen.
Behind him, Caroline whispers what he’s already picked up on. “It smells like blood.”
“Blood?” quietly repeats Elena, unsurprised but still unsettled.
“A lot of blood,” Caroline confirms.
By the time they make it into the den, Stefan is prepared for the worst. Another body, this one fresh. A pile of bodies. Damon’s—
But there’s no one in the room.
The song ends, rolling over into a softer, smoother melody, one that neatly compliments the golden light coming in slantways through the curtains.
Bonnie whistles lowly. “Looks like a tornado hit.”
She’s not wrong.
A tornado. Or a fight.
The coffee table is smashed, the couch tilted like—yes, the legs are broken. There are claw marks on the wall, an indent beside it, like a body had been thrown with enough force to dent the paneling. A few of the portraits are askew, one knocked down entirely, frame shattered onto the rug.
Blood stains multiple surfaces, dried in some spots, still damp in others.
Like Caroline said. A lot of blood.
“It’s Damon’s,” Stefan mutters, sure of it. Not half so mouthwatering as even dried human blood, it smells of vampire, generically so, cold copper death. Something along its edges, ephemeral and intangible, is undoubtedly Damon in a way that goes beyond his brother’s perpetual cloud of whiskey and expensive cologne.
He traces the carnage, is experienced enough with blood splatter and violence to know that—
Stefan’s jaw ticks as he stares at a dried blood smear, the long rusty length of it suggesting the vague shape of a hand before smudging into chaos. Running. Damon had been running away. Someone had dragged him back.
Phone out again, Elena quickly sends a text. Ric again, no doubt.
Before Stefan can do more than think of following the stains up the stairs, there is a creak at the top of the staircase, not audible enough that Elena and Bonnie can hear it over the music, but Stefan and Caroline’s heads snap to the stairwell; the other two trust their senses enough to follow suit. Unhurried steps echo down, until a man Stefan has never seen before stands before them. Demeanor completely unconcerned, he looks at them with a polite veneer of curiosity. His hair is wet, damp spots on his shirt making it clear that he’d just stepped out of a bath.
“Hello,” the man greets, vaguely British accent drawing out the word, slight smile such a contrast to the scene around them that, for one second, Stefan thinks this man has somehow wandered into the wrong house.
“Hi,” Elena says, affected calm not quite disguising the edge underneath it. She steps forward, ignoring Stefan’s aborted motion to step in front of her. He’s never sure if her bravery is more attractive than worry-inducing, but then he always remembers that without it she probably wouldn’t be willing to stand in the same room as him. “E, right? From the notes?”
Stefan does not take his attention off the intruder, but he does have to resist sending her a surprised look. He hadn’t told her E was a man—he hadn’t thought she would react badly or anything, it’s just… Damon’s business. Though now Damon’s business may or may not have killed him and is standing before them like the world’s most nonchalant home invader.
The man’s head tips, smile going from polite to pleased. “You are clever.”
It may as well be admission.
“Clever,” Elena agrees gamely, “that’s me. Do you always go by E, or is that just when you’re leaving threatening notes?”
E’s smile widens to reveal his teeth. Stefan kind of hates the shine of his eyes, the spark of genuine interest as he looks between Elena and where Caroline and Bonnie flank her. “Oh, very occasionally outside of the threatening notes. But most people call me Enzo.”
“Enzo?” Caroline taps her foot. Broken glass crunches beneath it. “Right. Can we get to the point? Is Damon chained to a radiator or not?”
“Not chained to the radiator, no,” Enzo says, unblinking at the accusation. “At least, not last I saw him.” He does not elaborate. There is, abruptly, the impression that Enzo finds their thinly veiled distrust amusing—or blatant, in Bonnie’s case, the witch’s feet planted so firmly she looks as though she’s ready to bodily toss the man out instead of relying on magic.
Caroline pointedly nudges a shard of glass. “You sure?”
As if just noticing the mess, he gestures to a blood flecked couch cushion and says, “Oh, this? Good of you to worry, but don’t be. Damon’s where he wants to be.”
“Where is he?” Stefan asks, restrained. This man is a vampire—one old enough to pick a fight with Damon and seemingly win. Stefan’s brother is no new vampire and no pushover.
“Asleep.” The tension in the air thickens even as a slight, well-mannered pause denies its existence. “Did you want me to wake him? Though, you know how he is. He’ll be all grumpy about it.” There’s a smile, then, as if they are all sharing a joke.
I’ll do it, Stefan nearly insists, but cannot follow through. Enzo has wandered off to the side to smirk at the pile of destroyed painting. Stefan cannot keep an eye on the man while upstairs and suspects Enzo is finding enjoyment in making him choose between his brother and his girlfriend and their friends.
“I’ll wake him up,” Elena volunteers.
“Elena,” Stefan tries to interject, but she only shakes her head. The knowing glance she sends him says she’s deduced his problem and is solving it herself. It is quickly and silently determined that Stefan will remain with Bonnie and Caroline and keep watch on Enzo, while she finds out what’s happened to Damon.
“Luck,” Enzo wishes her on her way up.
“Thanks,” she mutters, sending the stand off and the ruined room one last look over her shoulder before she makes it to the stairs.