Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Damon jumped down from the roof, leaving Lexi there to dodge the sun, trying his damnedest to push away everything he could feel coming back. No, he didn’t want it back. He didn’t want to be able to feel it again. That was why he turned it off in the first place. Damn Lexi and her pushing. He raced for his apartment so he could at least be alone when he fell apart, and just barely managed to hold it that long, falling to his knees the second he got in the door as it all slammed into him. That party, the fire, Enzo begging him not to go, realizing he was going to have to watch him die, flipping the switch…he choked a sob as he wrapped his arms around his middle as if to hold himself together. This was exactly why he never wanted it back. Having to face the world knowing that the man he loved was dead. Knowing that it was his fault for failing to save him. Knowing that Enzo died feeling betrayed by him. Enzo never knew how much he was loved. But fat lot of good that love did when Damon just left him to die in the end. That guilt was the most crushing part. He’d never meant to leave. He just couldn’t take the agony of watching him die. And now he had it all back and he was staring down the barrel of eternity with this pain.

He managed to pick himself up far enough to get to a bottle and then didn’t move for weeks. Aside from feeding, which had even more bodies dropping. He wasn’t in any kind of mental state to not kill. He didn’t torture them anymore, or play with his food, just went through it all in a drunken daze. Pounce, drain, go back to his bottle. It wasn’t until he realized how intent the police were to find the serial killer on a spree, that he snapped himself out of it and left New York, trying to figure out how to go on now. He found himself in Atlanta where he ended up meeting a young witch that gave him an idea. An idea that had him making liberal use of compulsion to skip over everything that he could learn from books in his own time, and right to the doctorate lab and field work. He’d always been fascinated by anthropology and mythology, and he could use some direction in his life.

He ended up having a fling with the witch for the first year that he was mostly in the lab, but then took off for the field work. It wasn’t like they could ever have anything serious anyway. His heart still belonged to Enzo and maybe always would. Which was why, once he got his doctorate degree, with his dissertation on file as would be necessary, he headed for Whitmore college. Torturing himself with the proximity that would help him feel close to his lost love. Going back to the last place he ever felt really alive. No matter how miserable his time in those cells were, it had led him to Enzo. To someone whose life had never been anything but pain and loneliness and abandonment, yet he still had hope and faith. He still believed that there was a happily ever after for him. Except there wasn’t. And Damon knew it was all his fault. Enzo should have been the one to get out. He deserved the chance to live far more than Damon did. His faith had been the only thing keeping Damon going for so long, and he hoped that being back there again might help him remember that. Or torture him by remembering it. It hardly mattered anymore. Nothing mattered really with Enzo gone.

When Damon got there, he looked for any openings in the department, and when there weren’t any, he made one. A little compulsion combined with the fact that it was only two weeks until the start of the new year rushing them too, got him the job as the professor of Anthropology and Mythology. He did want to be careful not to be recognized though, but figured the fact that his hair was completely different would help. He’d throw in some glasses too in order to fit into his new role. No one would have gotten that good of a look at him and any pictures or video that happened to be found from the old Augustines would be grainy enough that he could get away with it. He had no idea how long he would be doing this. Maybe just until his pain overrode his survival instincts. But if that did happen, it would be in the place he should have died more than twenty years ago.

He got moved into his new office, changed up the old professors syllabuses, put in his booklists for the students just in time before they went out, and got ready for the start of the school year. In order to stay at Whitmore, the best options were student or teacher, and student was boring. Maybe teacher would be better. When he got his student lists for all his classes, Anthropology one and two and Mythology one and two, he noticed a particular name in both of his starter classes. Well, a particular surname anyway, and given the proximity to Mystic Falls, it was most likely a Bennett witch. He’d lost track of the family back in the early fifties when he’d been captured, but she was probably the daughter of Amelia. Unless Beatrice just had a change of life baby after he’d been captured. Either way, this would be interesting. Maybe she’d even put him out of his misery once she pegged him as a vampire. He supposed he would see what happened.

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Since Damon was a last minute hire, he’d missed the pre-term faculty mixer. And wasn’t really that interested in getting to know his new colleagues anyway. Once classes started though, he quickly found that he actually enjoyed teaching. As much as he could enjoy anything anymore, that was. Between his natural talent at drawing people in, his interest in the subject matter that carried over, and his general energy, he had the students hanging on his every word. And making them really think was a fun challenge. Pushing debates and showing different perspectives and thinking outside the box. He found Sheila Bennett a particularly good student, which wasn’t surprising with her background. But she hadn’t yet pegged him as a vampire. Mostly because she hadn’t gotten close enough.

That was part of the reason, though not the entire one, that he pulled her up in front of the class after their first paper in Anthropology. She did have the best paper of the bunch, and really impressed him with it. And making that clear would help her get the respect that her peers seemed less inclined to give her. Even since the civil rights movement, women of color had a harder time than most. So once the class started, he called out, “Sheila Bennett, come on up front please.” He smirked when the tittering in the class told him that they thought she was in trouble. They were about to find out otherwise. Once she got up there, he handed her paper to her, bright red A shining at the top. “Ms. Bennett was one of the few who understood the entire purpose of this assignment, and the one who executed it the best,” he told the class. “Why don’t you give the class a summary of your paper?” he encouraged her.

“A-alright,” Sheila said, beaming with pride, but also suffering from nerves at speaking in front of so many people. “My paper offered a differing point of view on the viking culture. Showing that they weren’t the barbarians going around raping and pillaging like history says,” she started.

“A unique and novel idea,” Damon nodded. “And what evidence and logic did you use to show this?” he prompted.

“Well, I started with the fact that the all-father of the viking gods was Odin. Yes, a god of war, but also of knowledge and wisdom. The god that gouged out his own eye to gain access to the wisdom of the universe. The culture that venerated a god like that above all others was clearly more than just barbarians. When considering that they were a nomadic culture, and thus no records of their own survived, the only records we have of their culture or their actions, come from the English. Who were their sworn enemies. It’s natural that they wouldn’t have nothing nice to say. Yet, there is evidence of cross-cultural exchange from the vikings from all over the world. Many places that did have plenty of surviving records from that time. And none of them mention any viking atrocities, making it more likely that they were simply explorers and traders and the English mentality, in the era of the crusades, was the problem,” she explained the overview.

“A different perspective challenging the common view rather than taking it at face value, with clear logical evidence to back it up. That’s exactly what we all need to be doing,” Damon told the class, putting a hand on Sheila’s shoulder and giving a squeeze, as he motioned her back to her seat. He noticed her tense and spin to look at him when he touched her, but ignored it for now and just continued addressing the class. “If we just accept the narrative of those that have come before, then we have nothing new to offer the field. We have to be able to take what they’ve done and build on it. Question everything. Find new threads and new perspectives that will help build a more complete picture of the complexities of the historical cultures.” With that, he wrapped up the class, telling them, “Come and pick up your papers on your way out.”

Damon packed up his stuff and headed to his office for the start of his office hours, wondering if Sheila would be coming to him today about her revelation or waiting to speak with her mother first. He’d looked into her family situation already and knew that she’d started school late. Her daughter, Abby, had been born when she was sixteen and she’d gotten her GED instead of finishing high school. She only started college at Whitmore when little Abby started grade school, and her mother Amelia took care of the child after school until Sheila got home from her later classes. He hadn’t yet figured out how she was managing the commute from Mystic Falls. An hour each way seemed like quite a bit to drive every day. Not suspiciously so, but given that they were witches, he did wonder if they had some sort of magical shortcut.

He was pulled from his musings by a knock on his door and he called to ‘come in’. He gave a wry smile to the young witch that his thoughts may as well have summoned. He would play along for now though, as he motioned her to sit, pretending not to know why she seemed so tense and nervous. “I hope you don’t mind that I singled you out in front of the class. I just happened to be quite impressed with your paper.”

“No, that’s fine,” Sheila waved it off. Yeah, it had been a bit embarrassing, but she actually enjoyed it. She could see why some people liked teaching so much even. When she noticed him looking expectantly at her, she shook her head and brought up the big subject. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

“I am. And you’re a witch,” he smirked, letting it be known that he knew her secret too.

“I don’t understand,” she frowned.

“What is it that you don’t understand?” Damon leaned his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers thoughtfully.

“Well…my mother says that vampires are monsters. That they’re cold and cruel and calculating. That they don’t have the capacity to care about anyone but themselves,” Sheila said.

“But I don’t fit that view,” Damon said as much as asked, wanting to confirm why she was confused. When he got a nod, he saw an opportunity. One that he wasn’t about to pass up. And admitting that he /did/ fit that view for a long time until recently wouldn’t be helpful of course. “Most vampires don’t. It’s just the ones that do that draw the attention with the trouble they cause. It doesn’t help that there’s a long-held feud between witches and vampires going back a thousand years. Not everyone believes in that though. I don’t. I’ve had other witch friends that didn’t. But some people just can’t let the past go.”

“That makes perfect sense,” she nodded thoughtfully. Not that much different from her paper really. Stories told by their enemies that took on a life of their own. “So you’re not here to…I don’t know…eat students? Recruit kids to be new vampires? Corrupt people? Nothing like that?”

“I do snack on people, many of them students, but I don’t hurt or kill them, no. I have no interest in turning new vampires or corrupting people. I’m here because I enjoy teaching. Because I enjoy the subjects I teach,” Damon told her.

“There’s more to it than that,” Sheila tilted her head curiously. When he raised an eyebrow, she shrugged. “I just know things sometimes.” She knew that he’d been telling the truth, of course, and suspected that truth before she even asked, but she could also tell that there was more he wasn’t saying.

“There was an incident here back in the fifties. I lost something precious to me and forgot how to live. I wanted to come back where it all started to either learn how to live again, or let go and die like I should have back then,” he said cryptically.

“That explains so much,” Sheila said sadly. Why he looked so sad and lost all the time when she saw him around campus. Why he was so animated and vibrant in class, but as soon as class ended, he just seemed to wilt. She had no idea what had happened to him back then, but it must have been horrible. She took the chance to reach over the desk to put a comforting hand on his arm. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from magic, it’s that everything happens for a reason. You survived for a reason. Don’t throw that away.”

“We’ll see,” Damon said wryly, patting her hand affectionately before she took it away. He knew the touch wasn’t meant as a come-on, nor would he have accepted it as such if it was. Not while she was his student. Having a friend could be nice though. Especially one that he didn’t have to keep such big secrets from. What Bree could have been back in Atlanta if not for complicating everything with sex that had her falling for him. She would be off-limits long enough to form a solid friendship before those complications were even an option, so he would see what happened.

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After that day, Sheila made a habit of stopping by Damon’s office, even outside his office hours when he was there. Sometimes just to say hello, others she came in and talked, learning more about vampires and the supernatural world as a whole. Her mother kept her rather sheltered from the rest of the world, but he’d been a part of it for over a hundred years. She told him more about magic and he told her stories of his past. She kept her burgeoning friendship with a vampire from her mother, knowing that Amelia would throw a fit. Naturally, her visits were just between classes though, given that she went straight home to be with her daughter once classes were over. And usually got her homework done once Abby was in bed for the night.

Damon, despite his new friendship and rewarding job, was still struggling for a reason to live. But Sheila had talked him into attending the next faculty mixer in November. Convinced him to get out there and pay attention to something beyond his work. Get to know his colleagues and all. The fact that Sheila hinted that she ‘knew’ it was important that he go didn’t hurt. While Damon was there grudgingly, he was soon very glad he attended, and would never question Sheila’s ‘knowing’ again. He’d just been sulking in a corner, only speaking to those who spoke to him, when a conversation from the other side of the room grabbed his attention. The words ‘Augustine Society’. But that wasn’t possible. He’d wiped them out twenty years ago.

His attention zeroed in on that conversation, almost hoping that the name had been coopted by others, but when he heard them talking about the advanced medical research that the society was doing, he knew it was the same one. That they were still going somehow. They must have used some of the blood they’d taken from him and Enzo to make more vampires. Maybe even got lucky enough to capture another old one. Of course, there was a chance they were just using stored blood and those records to keep researching, but he doubted it. And even if that /was/ the case, he still had no intention of letting that happen either. That entire group deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth. That was his new mission in life. Getting rid of them once and for all and making sure they were never revived again. And this time, he might even be able to have help.

The next day in class, Sheila noticed that he seemed particularly distracted, and when he gave her the signal to come see him later, she wondered if it had something to do with supernatural issues. Which was why she went straight to his office as soon as class was over. “What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly, as he locked the door and turned on his noise machine.

“Have you ever heard of the Augustine Society?” Damon asked her seriously.

“Sort of,” she gave a half-shrug. “I know they’re a medical research group under the supervision of the Whitmore Foundation. I was approached by someone last year wanting to recruit me, but I blew him off since I don’t have any interest in medical research or anything.”

“They didn’t want you for medical reasons. They probably wanted you because they suspected you were a witch,” Damon said bitterly.

“They know about magic?” Sheila asked confusedly. “Oh my…that’s not what…” her eyes widened as she got it.

“They torture vampires for their experiments. May have even moved on to witches now too. Or maybe they found out about the witch/vampire feud and wanted some magical security. I don’t know. But I thought I wiped them out back in the fifties and early sixties after I escaped. I found out last night that they’re still there.”

“That’s what happened…why you…” Sheila gasped, completely understanding now. “What do you need from me?”

“Some magical support to get in there and kill them all would be nice,” Damon said as he paced his office, even taking his glasses off to throw on the desk. He didn’t need them with her anyway. She knew they were just decorative.

“Okay, no,” Sheila shook her head, but was quick to explain when he spun around angrily. “I will help you. Even to kill everyone involved in the torture and exploitation of innocent vampires.”

“Then what do you mean ‘no’?” Damon asked with narrowed eyes.

“I mean, we don’t need to go recklessly rushing in like a bull in a china shop. I’m guessing that’s what you did last time, and it clearly didn’t work,” Sheila pointed out.

Damon opened his mouth to argue before snapping it closed again when he realized he couldn’t say anything to that. He walked over to the window, looking out as he leaned his hand against the frame, taking a few deep breaths for calm. “What do you suggest then?”

“We research. Just like you always tell us to do,” she said amusedly. “We find out who they are. Who’s involved, who’s funding it, who’s running it. Not just the main part, but every root and branch. Then we make a plan to take it all out at once so that it can never be revived again.”

Damon stood there for a long moment watching all the clueless little people under his window going about their days with no clue the monsters that were lurking just around the corner. Every fiber of his being wanted to just rush in there, kill everyone he could get his hands on, and call it a day. But he knew Sheila was right. If he did that, he would basically be stuck here forever, cutting of the head of the snake every time it regrew from some direction he didn’t know existed. Much as he hated leaving any of their test subjects a moment longer than necessary, it would be worth it to make sure this travesty never happened again. If it had still been Enzo there, nothing would have stopped him from charging right in, but he had no personal ties to whoever they had in there, which made it much easier. “Okay. We’ll do it your way,” Damon sighed.

“Thank you,” Sheila said gratefully. She had no problem wiping out such a horrific institution, but she didn’t want to die doing it. Which meant being smart about it. “I know this is personal for you,” she did understand Dr. Salvatore’s impatience.

“You have no idea how personal it is,” Damon said hauntedly.

“Tell me?” she prodded gently, getting the hint that it was more than just what they’d done to him.

“The love of my life was killed during our escape attempt. And I turned off my humanity for almost two decades because I couldn’t take it. I was supposed to die there too, rather than leave, but once my humanity was off…”

“You couldn’t care enough to stay,” Sheila finished when he trailed off. “I’m /so/ sorry. I can’t even imagine what you must have been going through for so long.” She’d already figured out, looking through the past news clippings around Whitmore, that whatever happened to him likely had to do with the big fire of fifty-eight. Which meant that he hadn’t been back for more than a few years. No wonder he was struggling so much. And now to find out that those monsters were still there…she considered herself lucky that he hadn’t already gone rushing in and gotten himself killed. “I promise you, we will destroy them, once and for all. For you, for your girl, and for everyone else they’ve hurt. But promise me that we’ll do this smart? Please?”

Damon started to correct her on the ‘girl’ part before deciding against it. It didn’t matter anymore. Maybe someday he would tell her more about Enzo, but for now he wasn’t going to risk her rescinding her help over finding out that he was in love with a guy. While it wasn’t as risky as it used to be, it was still a risk. “Okay. And even if it does go bad the smart way…I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you make it out safely.” For her daughter’s sake as much as hers. He wasn’t going to get a mother killed if he could help it.

“Do everything in your power to get us /both/ out safely,” Sheila said seriously.

“We’ll see,” Damon said dismissively as he always did when she mentioned him continuing his life. She was right though that he survived for a reason. This was the reason. And if it was the only reason, and it brought about his end, then so be it. But he would damn sure take them down with him if it came to it. Then he could die in peace. And hopefully find Enzo again when he did.

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Damon essentially let Sheila off doing the bare minimum for his classes as long as they were investigating the Augustine Society. She still needed to learn the material, of course, but what wasn’t done in class, could be done just as well through one on one discussions and debates as it could through her researching and writing papers. She’d been in school long enough to know how to research and write papers already anyway and did so still for her other classes. Hell, he would have let her off class altogether and just helped her catch up later if he survived, but she didn’t want to skip class. Told him that he was a great teacher and she didn’t want to miss it. He didn’t see what he did that was so great personally, but it was clear that she wasn’t the only one that felt that way. He had been getting more animated in his classes since he found his new purpose in life. It may not be a purpose that made him happy, but it was still a purpose. It was something to live for, however temporary.

Over the next month before winter break started, they did as much research as they could, starting with the Whitmore family, and worked their way out. Damon attended the next faculty mixer as well and this time actually mingled, asking some subtle questions and making note of who all knew about the Augustine Society and who seemed closest to Dr. Whitmore to start investigating too. They couldn’t get into the offices of the board until the break, when they did some magical breaking and entering. That way no one would know that they’d been there with Sheila unlocking the place by magic rather than Damon smashing in windows. She couldn’t ask her mother to babysit /that/ much when she was on break, so she mostly just came to get him in, having her daughter in the car waiting for the ten minutes it took her to go through and unlock everything. Damon would stay there until he got everything he needed and just lock up what he could behind him.

Damon ended up spending two days there, making liberal use of their copy machine for some things, taking notes in a notebook for others, figuring out exactly who all was involved in the Augustines and how much the board knew. It turned out there was another foundation closely linked with the Augustines, and the board knew about their practices and vampires as well. The donors would be gone through with a fine tooth comb. Damon had been talked into letting any of them live that didn’t know about the bad parts and just thought they were donating to a medical research foundation. And if they were on vervain, it would be considered an admission of guilt. A compromise he and Sheila had reached. He took care of that over the course of the winter break. He was almost glad to find that no one from the Mystic Falls council was still involved, especially not Salvatores. They had apparently left the Salvatores out of it after Joseph was killed.

Damon knew that his son had a young son of his own at the moment, but he was still dubious about making contact with his family again. At least as long as Joey was alive. Looking him in the eyes and knowing that he’d been the one to orphan him at the tender age of six would just be another load of guilt that he wasn’t sure he could take. In fact, despite being so close, he never stepped into Mystic Falls at all and was glad to find that he wouldn’t need to now to chase down Augustines. Once he was finished and had gotten all the information he could from there, he ended up having to call Sheila back. While he could relock the doors, he couldn’t do so with the desks and file cabinets without the keys. One or two being left unlocked could be considered just a matter of forgetfulness, but all of them would be suspicious. They didn’t want these monsters to have any idea what was coming until it did. Which would have to wait until they were back from their vacations as school started back up.

Sheila agreed to miss the first day of her classes to help him take care of everything and they were starting out and working their way in. They took out the board by simple expediency of waiting until they were all there, causing a gas leak, and then blowing the building up. They didn’t need anyone looking into massacres if they could avoid it. Then they went around grabbing up the employees that weren’t on duty, arranging accidents for them too, not that there were many of them. A chemical spill in the lab of the sister organization took care of everyone there. They knew it would be suspicious for them all to have such ‘accidents’ at once, but there was no getting around that much. There wouldn’t be any evidence of something more sinister. Except at the last place. Their final stop. The secret lab beneath the Whitmore house that no one could ever let be found anyway lest it be learned what they really did there.

Damon had managed to get an invitation inside not long before, glad that his disguise was holding up. Which was only possible because of how bad video technology had been back in the fifties. Assuming anyone even bothered to look at the old reels anymore at all. But a change of hairstyle, keeping up with the times, and the glasses which everyone knew that vampires never needed was enough. Once they were inside, Sheila put all the house staff to sleep, knowing that they were innocent of any wrongdoing, as Damon followed the path he knew very well down to the dungeon lab. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Sheila stopped the heart of one of the guards while Damon blurred in and ate the other. It was the first time Sheila had seen him eat, much less kill, and she gave a bit of a shudder as she turned away. She didn’t hold it against him under the circumstances, of course, but it was rather jarring to see.

They stole the keys from the guards and got inside the facility, running into the other two guards on duty right away. The screams Damon could hear from the lab told him that they were hard at work on a prisoner, so he was definitely taking no prisoners right now. Sheila, again, stopped the heart of the one coming around her direction while Damon blurred and broke the neck of the other one. Whatever poor soul they had down here needed to eat more than Damon did. He was fine with the one he already got. That done, Damon led Sheila towards the lab. Without the vampire hearing, she couldn’t hear the screams until they got close, but as soon as she could, she visibly paled and any question in her mind of whether they were doing the right thing was completely banished. And once the door was opened and she could see what the sick doctor was doing to the poor soul strapped to the table, she was completely committed to her course of action.

Damon, knowing that her planned punishment was far better than he could ever come up with, and would be a good scapegoat on top of that, used his superior speed to force the potion down his throat before Sheila cast the quick spell that would activate the brutal curse. Only when all the danger was gone as the newest Doctor Whitmore’s mind broke, did Damon turn his attention to the prisoner on the table, already undoing the restraints before he saw who it was. “Enzo…” he breathed out. “What…how…”

“Damon, you bloody bastard!” Enzo struggled against the remaining restraints, wanting to get his hands around his ex-friend’s neck.

Damon didn’t hesitate in getting the rest of the restraints free, perfectly willing to let Enzo do anything he wanted to him, and once he was free, Enzo had him slammed against the wall. He didn’t get a chance to do more than hit him a couple times before Enzo skidded across the room too. Much more gently than Sheila might have done anyone else with what he’d been through. “Sheila, don’t,” Damon told her. “If he wants my life, he can have it. I owe him that much and more.”

Enzo picked himself up off the floor and glared at Damon with narrowed eyes. “/Nothing/ could make up for abandoning me to this hell for more than two extra decades. Not even your life,” he said coldly.

“I’m sorry, Enzo,” Damon said plaintively. “I thought I wiped them all out back then. I thought you were dead in that fire.”

“The fire you /left/ me to die in, you mean,” he snapped. “Did you even think about me after you left, huh? Did you even care?”

“He’s here isn’t he?” Sheila butted in, afraid that Damon wouldn’t defend himself anymore than he already had. She couldn’t imagine how he was feeling right now. Especially since she got the hint that this was the ‘love of his life’. “He didn’t get his humanity back for twenty years and then came back here as a teacher to torture himself with the memories which was when he found out that they were still here.”

Enzo closed his eyes and took a deep breath for calm as he turned to look at her. “We haven’t met. I’m Lorenzo, but my friends call me Enzo. If I had any friends anyway,” he cast a look at Damon as he held out a hand to her. It would take some time for her words to sink in and the pain to go away.

“Sheila Bennett,” she took his hand, introducing herself too.

Chapter Text

Now that they’d been introduced and he wasn’t so intent on killing Damon at the moment, he turned his attention to the doctor. His screams were music to his ears, but he wasn’t sure what was happening that had him screaming and writhing on the floor. “What’s with him?” he asked the witch, guessing that it was more her doing than Damon’s.

“He’s reliving every bit of pain he visited on any sentient being,” Sheila said, a note of satisfaction through her discomfort. Now that the attention had been drawn to him, it was harder to forget, but as difficult as it was to see, she knew he deserved it. Just the fact that he was going through as much was enough proof of that.

“We’re going to plant some evidence that he lost his mind and killed the rest of them, with a little compulsion to help it along,” Damon told him. “He’ll end up in a mental institution, and even sedated, he’ll keep living every moment in his subconscious for as long as he lives. Which is likely to be a long time.” And the fact that he didn’t have any kids yet meant that the Whitmore line ended with him. It was just too bad that his father had died of a heart attack last year. Damon had killed his grandfather at that party. And now he would never have a kid himself.

“I suppose that’s a fitting revenge,” Enzo had to admit, taking another minute to watch him before Damon spoke again.

“We dropped some bodies still full of blood for you to eat,” Damon told him as he went out to get them, dragging all three of them into the lab.

“I’ll go work on getting rid of the records,” Sheila said, just needing to get away from the man she’d cursed. Even just the fact that everything he was suffering in his mind, the innocent vampire standing in front of her had endured for almost forty years was enough to hurt.

Once Enzo finished eating, Damon told him, “I’ve got an apartment here on campus. You’re welcome to stay with me. I’ll teach you how to get by with all the changes in the world and get you set up with everything you need.”

“And if I decide to kill you anyway now that your witch isn’t here to protect you?” Enzo asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I meant what I said. My life is yours if you want it. Along with everything I own that I’ll tell you where to find,” Damon said. “I’m not gonna fight you, Enzo.”

That stance alone took the wind out of Enzo’s sails. What fun was fighting if Damon wasn’t going to fight back? How was he supposed to get revenge when Damon was being so contrite? “I suppose I could use a little help learning the new way of things,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Yeah. Okay. I’m here, whatever you need,” Damon promised. “If you want to go somewhere else, we can too,” he realized that Enzo might not want to be here any longer than he had to be.

“I think I would appreciate being able to see the fallout of this. And staying close to make sure that they don’t get revived either wouldn’t go amiss,” Enzo decided. It wasn’t as though he had any trauma associated with anything beyond this house. Primarily just the dungeon given that there hadn’t been a party since the one Damon escaped. And with the fire, he was sure that if that room even existed anymore, it had been redone.

“Okay, good,” Damon said relieved. He would have given up his job if Enzo wanted, but he would appreciate keeping it for the moment. At least through the rest of the school year, then he’d see how he felt. “We should probably go help Sheila get rid of the records first though,” he suggested. Magic had enhanced the explosion and resulting fire at the offices of the board to make sure nothing was left there. They’d cleared out any records and samples from the sister society too, so it was just here that was left.

Much as Enzo wanted desperately to get out of this place, he wanted more to make sure everything related to it was destroyed, so he easily agreed and the two of them joined Sheila in the office where she was just chucking things willy nilly into a magical fire that she had in the middle of the floor. With the vampire speed it was done in no time, and Damon and Enzo both thanked Sheila profusely as they made their way back up and through the house, waking up all the sleepers once they were out. Sheila had to head home since her last class would be ending shortly had she gone to it, and Damon had Enzo follow him to his car that he’d just bought new last year.

“I can certainly see that a lot has changed,” Enzo said as he got in the rather impressive car before looking around at everything else.

“Yeah, that’s an understatement,” Damon chuckled tightly, still unable to believe that Enzo was still alive. And struggling to handle the new load of guilt that settled on his shoulders. At least with him alive, this part he could make up for eventually. They did have eternity after all. “So I’m thinking we’ll swing by my place and get you a shower and you can borrow a change of clothes, then we’ll go get some shopping done and get you outfitted with everything else you need.”

“And a haircut. I want a haircut too,” Enzo added.

“Yeah, we should have time for that too,” Damon nodded. “If not, we can do that tomorrow afternoon.”

“Why afternoon?” Enzo asked curiously.

“Because I have classes tomorrow. Was supposed to today too, but I played sick so we could get this done,” Damon told him. He’d left the syllabuses for the courses in boxes hanging on his classroom door. If the kids were dumb enough to get the wrong ones when they were clearly marked then that was their problem.

“That’s right…she said you were a teacher,” Enzo scrutinized Damon, trying to picture him as a teacher. The apparent change in clothing styles didn’t help since Damon wasn’t dressed at all like he would expect a teacher to be. Or like he would expect anyone ‘respectable’ to be. Though maybe since he was taking the day off, he was dressed differently. “What do you teach?”

“Anthropology and Mythology,” Damon told him.

“That’s not surprising,” Enzo huffed a laugh. He knew how much those subjects had always fascinated Damon. Along with literature and history. But both of those subjects overlapped a lot with the two he was teaching.

Once they pulled up at Damon’s building, Damon led him inside, grabbing his spare key to hand to Enzo before showing him to the shower. While Enzo was showering, Damon first found a set of clothes for him to borrow for the afternoon, before setting to rearranging things. He only had the one bedroom, which would be Enzo’s of course until he was able to get a two bedroom over the summer, assuming they stayed. By the time Enzo finished his shower, one of Damon’s two dressers was moved into the living room, and any of his more frequently worn hanging clothes had been moved to the cleaned out hall closet. The other dresser and half the closet in the bedroom was for Enzo’s clothes.

Enzo wouldn’t find out until after their shopping trip that Damon intended him to have the bedroom when he started putting Enzo’s stuff away in there. “What are you doing?” Enzo asked with furrowed brow. Surely Damon didn’t intend on them sharing a bed, though maybe he planned to get two smaller beds for the room.

“I’ll take the couch for now,” Damon waved it off like it was no big deal. If anyone deserved comfort and privacy it was Enzo after almost forty years in that hellhole. The single bathroom had a door from the living room too so Damon wouldn’t even have to go through the bedroom to get to it.

Enzo just shrugged, not planning to argue the matter. It wasn’t like Damon didn’t owe him more than he could ever repay anyway. He wouldn’t have asked for Damon’s room, but he wasn’t going to turn it down either. It wasn’t particularly late yet, but given how long it had been since he’d had an actual bed, he just took a bottle of bourbon, something else he’d missed, and headed to bed to relax for a while before sleep. Damon tried to keep his mind off everything by getting ready for his classes tomorrow, but it wasn’t working very well. His mind just kept churning around the newfound guilt for leaving Enzo there for so long, the joy over him still being alive, the regret over losing the most precious parts of their friendship that he might never get back, the burning love that flared back to full force the second he saw Enzo again. It didn’t take long before he abandoned his work and grabbed another bottle of bourbon for himself, not even bothering with a glass, and drank until he passed out.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Damon was out for class early, leaving a note for Enzo that he would be back by four, and that the book he’d left with it would give him an overview of more recent history since the second world war if he wanted to get a head start. Despite sleeping on the couch, and the fact that he’d passed out drunk the night before, he was in relatively good mood. He chose to focus on the good parts of the current situation and keep the bad buried. Even drew on Enzo’s old lessons in finding the silver lining to do so. Enzo was alive, and more than that, he was still here. Which meant Damon had a chance to get his friend back. He didn’t dare hope for more than that, but the friendship would be enough. Now he really did have something to live for. At least until or unless Enzo chose to take revenge. He went through his classes with a spring in his step, and only Sheila knew why. She was just glad that things seemed to be going well, and checked in to make sure during his office hours between her classes.

Enzo was up not long after Damon left and found the note with the book, but put it aside for the moment in favor of taking a nice long bath. While he understood the necessity of being quick yesterday when they had a lot to do, he relished the idea of a nice soak. And a chance to clear his head. Once he was relaxed in the tub, he laid his head back against the edge and thought back over the last less than twenty-four hours. One minute he was on that lab table, being torn open like every other day and then Damon was there. The fact that, even when he made it clear how angry he was, Damon didn’t even hesitate to continue undoing his restraints meant something. As did the fact that it was Damon that came for him to begin with. If it had been anyone else, he still would have been on the warpath against Damon.

That helped him come to terms with the fact that Damon apparently had thought he was dead and that the Augustines were gone. And if he really thought that, then he had apparently /tried/ to wipe them out. Not just got his freedom and rode off into the sunset without a second thought. And the moment he learned otherwise, he had come to finish the job. Despite thinking that Enzo was dead. The mention of the fact that Damon turned off his humanity was on his mind as well, but he wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. All that time in those cells clinging to their humanity like it was the most precious thing in the world, because it was, and Damon had just thrown it away. Just so that he could save himself and leave Enzo to die. In hindsight, he could recognize the moment it shut off. Damon had given up on getting him out of that cage, looked around to see that the exits were getting cut off, looked back at him, and then it was gone as he turned and walked away. Damon had cared more about his life than his humanity. More about his life than Enzo.

But he’d come back. Even before he knew the Augustines survived. Once he got his humanity back, he came back here to ‘torture himself with the memories’ as the witch had put it. Clearly he realized that it hadn’t been worth it. It could never make up for it, but learning his lesson was the important part. It meant that it wouldn’t be repeated. Maybe he could give Damon a chance then. The future was far more important than the past. And some part of him couldn’t bring himself to give up on Damon. Probably because he’d never had such a close friend before. He’d never had the occasions to get close to people in his long miserable life. But he hadn’t had much choice with Damon, and giving that up without giving it every chance seemed wrong. It was too precious a thing to just throw away.

But then this was a very different situation too. Before they had no choice but to lean on each other, open up to each other, rely on each other. Now, they /did/ have other choices. And with all the painful memories, would it be easier to just walk away? Find other friends that didn’t come with so much baggage? Just because he didn’t want to didn’t mean that Damon would. Maybe this whole thing, inviting him to stay, buying him stuff, helping him adjust…maybe it was just paying a debt to Damon. Damon never liked to face the painful stuff. He preferred to run from it when he could. He again reminded himself that Damon had come back here. Maybe that meant he’d learned that lesson too. He would have to find out. If he was just an obligation, and an attempt to pay a debt, he would take only as much as he needed to get by and then give Damon his freedom. But if Damon wanted to find their friendship again, he would give it a chance. See if they could have the same closeness in the real world as they had on the inside.

By the time Enzo got out of his bath, he had his head as straight as it would get for the moment, and decided to go out and get some fresh air. He’d learned last night that he shouldn’t try to feed on his own for a while. Until he got used to it again. Even after eating the three full people on the way out of the dungeon, he’d almost lost control at his first live blood in so long. Damon had been quick to pull him off, explaining that they’d had too many deaths already with the wrap-up of the Augustines and the last thing they needed was vampire hunters taking too much notice of the area. Especially since there was a whole council of them an hour away. Enzo could completely understand that and the last thing he wanted to do was end up in another cell.

He did want some fresh air though, and would even get his own hair cut while he was out so he and Damon could just hang out when he got home. From being a teacher, Enzo still found amazing. Damon would either be an amazing teacher or a terrible one. He couldn’t see any middle ground there knowing Damon, but he definitely considered the idea of stopping by one of his classes one day to see for himself. Not today though. Today he just wanted to revel in being free, secure in the knowledge that anyone who knew he existed was gone. He took that opportunity to listen to the gossip regarding the events of the previous day as well. The explosion that took out the whole Whitmore foundation, the lab accident that caused the death of a group of researchers, and Doctor Whitmore losing his mind.

There hadn’t been enough time to get the planted story out there yet with investigations still ongoing, but people were definitely abuzz about what they did know. And rather on edge because of it. He did decide to drop a few rumors himself when people were talking about it, making it almost seem like he was joking as he suggested that crazy Whitmore might have killed them all when he lost his marbles. But the idea was planted, making it more likely for people to believe it when the ‘truth’ did come out. While they’d been shopping, Damon told him how Sheila was planting Dr. Whitmores fingerprints magically on the gas nozzle at the board offices and on the chemical bottle in the lab. Plus a bit of gas residue and chemical residue on his hands and clothes, would be enough to do the job. Not only drive him out of his mind and make him live every bit of pain he dished out, but destroying his reputation and his legacy along with it. Enzo’s only complaints were that he didn’t get to do it himself and that it wasn’t drawn out over a long period of time.

While they’d been getting his clothes and toiletries and everything, they’d also gotten him a watch. One that cost more than he could ever have imagined paying for a simple watch, diamonds in it or not. But that allowed him to get back home by three thirty, giving him time for a quick rinse in the shower to get rid of any residual hair from his haircut, before Damon got home. And he spent the rest of the time while he was waiting looking around the place. Some might say snooping, but Enzo just called it getting to know where everything was and in some cases, wondering /what/ it was so he could ask Damon later.

Chapter Text

Damon got home to find Enzo turning over the television remote in his hand, looking confusedly at it, and he gave an amused smile, dropping his briefcase by the door and gently pulling it from Enzo’s hand. Before he could do anything with it, Enzo did a double take at him and asked, “Glasses?”

“I wanted to put at least a little bit of distance between me and the old prisoner in case anyone might have recognized me. They seemed fitting for my job and all,” he shrugged sheepishly as he took them off and set them on the table.

“They suit you,” Enzo said before he jumped and spun around when Damon pressed a button on the strange looking contraption and a noise came from the other side of the room. “What the…”

“Did you have any experience with televisions before you were captured?” Damon asked, wondering where to start his answer.

“I’d heard of them, but never actually seen one myself,” Enzo said as he sat down to watch the moving pictures. “Is that what that is? How did you control it from over here?”

“Yes, that’s a television. TV for short. This is a remote control. Just like radios work by sending sound waves through the air, this sends a command to the TV. It doesn’t have as much range as a radio, and has to be pointed directly at it, and has to be programmed to the specific television, but it’s a similar enough principle,” Damon explained.

“Fascinating,” Enzo said, paying attention to both Damon and what was on the screen at the same time. “What is this that’s on now?”

Damon took a moment to watch before saying, “I think that’s called Sanford or something. It’s a television show. I don’t watch a lot of TV myself, which is why I only have the main three networks instead of paying for cable. Though I can get cable if you’re interested.”

“I don’t know yet,” Enzo said thoughtfully, thinking it was a novel idea. Just the idea that the ‘star’ was a colored man was interesting.

“I’ll just go ahead and get it for now and you can explore and we’ll see if we want to keep it,” Damon decided as he grabbed the phone to call the cable company now while he was thinking about it, giving Enzo a chance to watch a little more. The cable guys would be there Friday morning, so he’d need to make sure Enzo was there to let them in since he had classes. Fridays was his short day, but the only time they could get him in was in the morning between eight and twelve and he wouldn’t be home until one.

Once the appointment was made, he poured himself a drink, refilled Enzo’s, and sat down to watch with him, using the show, and then the next show, to point out things that had changed in the world as he kept their drinks topped off. After the next show, the nightly news came on, which offered even better opportunities for explaining changes in the world. After the news though, they turned the tv off and just chatted for the evening. Starting with Enzo teasing Damon. “I found the fruity smelling bubbles for the bath.”

“Oh…well…I mean…Sometimes I have women over and they like them,” Damon explained a little flustered.

Enzo laughed, Damon’s demeanor telling him everything he needed to know about who it was that liked them. So he decided to admit, “They /were/ rather nice and refreshing.”

“Yeah. I guess so,” Damon chuckled, keeping it vague. And also not admitting how much he liked the idea of Enzo using his guilty pleasure bubble bath that he’d smelled as soon as he came in. He just hadn’t wanted to draw attention to it. He did change the subject though as he said, “I see you got your hair cut today?”

“Yeah, I wanted to get out and get some fresh air and when I walked by the place, I figured I might as well. That way we could just catch up tonight and all,” Enzo told him before deciding to fish a bit. “I mean, the sooner I figure out all this newfangled stuff, the sooner I can be out of your hair right?”

“You don’t need to be out of my hair,” Damon was quick to say. “I hope that we can find a way to be friends again, but…I’ll understand if you just want to hit the road.”

“Friends again sounds good. We can try at least,” Enzo agreed. “Long as it’s not out of some obligation or guilt or pity.”

“It’s not,” Damon said seriously, catching Enzo’s eyes and getting lost in them for a moment before he looked away, breaking the spell. God, he’d forgotten how expressive those eyes could be. Enzo’s stoicism was rock solid. Except for those soulful brown eyes. “You do anything else interesting today?” he floundered for a topic.

“Mostly just walked around, looked at things, eavesdropped on people. I dropped a few rumors about doc Whitmore going nuts and killing everyone, that sort of thing,” Enzo shrugged. “How was class?”

That launched Damon into a relatively long-winded talk about his classes that day, mentioning a few of the students, including Sheila Bennett. The light in his eyes decided Enzo that he would stop by one or two of Damon’s classes tomorrow just to see him up in front of a classroom. He was leaning towards him being a good teacher with that little glimpse and wanted to see for himself. The conversation flowed from there, even touching a bit on the past since they last saw each other. Enzo mentioned the major shakeup for the first couple years after the party, that he now knew was due to Damon hunting them. Damon didn’t mention much about his time without his humanity, but he did some. Even then though, it was from more of a distant perspective in relation to the different ways of the world than from a personal perspective.

Enzo got the hint that Damon didn’t like talking about that time, and he couldn’t really blame him. Any more than Enzo liked talking about his time in the cells. He didn’t shy away from it as much as Damon, and for those who didn’t know what he’d been through, he wouldn’t hesitate to explain it if he felt a need. Damon knew though, so there was no need to drag it all up. And Enzo got enough about Damon’s time without his humanity to understand, even with the distant perspective, so he didn’t feel a need to drag that up either. Instead, he kept things lighter, relating to the changes in the world. Other than when he asked Damon if he’d seen his brother again since forty-two, which he hadn’t. Even being so close to Mystic Falls he hadn’t seen or heard anything from Stefan. Though he had just left Mystic Falls not long before Damon got to Whitmore, so he probably wouldn’t check back for a while. It still bugged him that Stefan didn’t seem to have any interest in what Damon might be doing with his life though. Hell, it had taken him almost twenty years to send Lexi.

Enzo suggested he be the one to reach out at some point, not liking the idea of giving up on a brother completely. He pointed out that last time Stefan had come to him so it was his turn. Damon couldn’t really argue with that, but wasn’t committing to anything right now anyway. Aside from the fact that when and if Stefan ended up in Mystic Falls again, he’d see about reaching out if he was still at Whitmore. Maybe, if he left Whitmore, he might swing by where Stefan was staying, currently in the midwest, but maybe not. He was still stinging over the whole mess in forty-two, not to mention not looking for him for five years while he was in that damn dungeon. Enzo could completely understand that. They had eternity after all. There was no rush while the hard feelings were still so difficult.

Over the course of the night there were plenty of detours into ideas for the future. Different things they could do, places they could go, adventures they could have, or even some where they just stayed at Whitmore, Damon kept his job, and they traveled in the summers. Enzo didn’t notice that they were talking like they were going to be sticking together always, but Damon noticed, and it gave him a fresh wave of hope. Even just that Enzo didn’t seem to notice, meaning that it was his subconscious desire to stick together. As long as they could get past the conscious pain and bitterness, they would be okay. And so far it seemed to be going well.

Enzo, too, was getting more out of the conversation than Damon realized. Noticing the little things that Damon mentioned that said that Damon never forgot about him. The interest in astronomy and auroras that Damon had known nothing about before the cells. The tendency to prefer guitar music than piano/keyboard renditions like he had back then. Even the fact that he’d learned to play guitar in the last few years since he got his humanity back. And picked up the harmonica again, which was something that both of them had played during their respective wars when anything else wasn’t feasible to carry around. The little details that told Enzo just how much Damon still cared. Not that he could have guessed how much just yet. But he was about to find out.

Chapter Text

Even after Damon went to bed, Enzo sat out on the balcony for a little longer watching the stars before he headed in himself, which was why Damon was already out for the day by the time he woke up. That didn’t change his plan though as he headed out, asking directions to Doctor Salvatore’s class. He noticed that it was already in session, and hesitated a minute before deciding to slip in anyway when he noticed a familiar face in the front row. Especially since Damon had already noticed him with the door at the front of the room where he was. Damon gave him a wry smile, and Enzo returned an amused smirk as he came in and took a seat next to Sheila, giving her a little wink as he turned his attention to Damon who hadn’t missed a beat in the whole exchange.

He’d missed the first half hour of the two hour class, but still had more than enough time to see that Damon really was an amazing teacher. He, along with the rest of the class hung on every word, and he even had to catch himself a few times from participating in the lively debate that sprung up under Damon’s encouragement. He had to remember that he wasn’t an actual student. At least until Damon actually asked him for his thoughts and pulled him into it at which point he had as much fun as the rest of them. Since this was his first day with this class, the intended first day being the one he missed, Enzo wasn’t missing that much. Not from this semester anyway, but this was the more advanced class where they were building on last semester. The fact that he knew quite a bit on the subject from Damon talking about it in the cells together was enough to keep him from being lost, but now he was almost tempted to take Damon’s classes from the start. Or maybe just show up anyway without being a technical student.

Once the class was over, he gave Damon a playful salute as Damon shook his head amusedly at him and he followed Sheila out. “Hey there, doll. Where you headed?” he asked her.

“My next class is a few buildings down,” she told him.

“I’ll walk with you then,” he decided to take his shot.

“Sure,” Sheila shrugged. “How are you adjusting?” she asked sympathetically.

“There have certainly been a lot of changes in the last forty years,” he chuckled. “Don’t suppose you’d be interested in dinner sometime to discuss them?”

“You mean like…a date?” Sheila stopped short and looked at him with wide eyes.

“Sure. Why? Is that not a done thing in this time? Maybe I misunderstood something about the whole civil rights equality stuff Damon mentioned, but I don’t care if you don’t,” he said wryly, wondering why she seemed like a deer in the headlights over the suggestion.

“Um…it’s not that, it’s just…well…” she trailed off, trying to decide what to say.

“Well, what? You’re just not interested in vampires?” Enzo made the best guess he could.

“Damon’s in love with you,” she blurted out in her flustered panic. “And he’s kind of my best friend and mentor so…”

“He’s what?” it was Enzo’s turn to look like a deer in the headlights.

“Crap,” Sheila groaned. “And I have a daughter. She’s nine. So I don’t really have time to date. That really should have been my first excuse,” she muttered. “Just…please don’t bail on Damon for it. Or tell him I told you. He’ll never forgive me. And I know he’s happy just being your friend, so…” That was as far as she got before Enzo was walking away, heading back to the building they’d just come from. “Crap, crap, crap,” she chastised herself, debating whether to go after him and be late for her next class or just let whatever was about to happen, happen. If she’d had the ingredients on her for an amnesia spell, she might have made a different choice, but there wasn’t anything else she could say that she hadn’t already and she /had/ already missed todays classes on Monday to save Enzo, so she just ignored the pit in her stomach as she headed on to her next class.

Enzo headed back to Damon’s classroom in a daze, noticing that he seemed to have another class. The schedule on the door said it was Basic Mythology rather than a repeat of the Advanced Anthropology he’d attended the previous period, so he decided to go in and join another class. And this one hadn’t even started yet given how people were still filing in. This time he sat at the back though and managed to slip in with a group while someone else was talking to him so he wasn’t even noticed yet. He just wanted to watch and come to terms with this new revelation. Maybe even figure out how /he/ felt. Assuming Sheila was right about Damon’s feelings, of course. He’d never even considered Damon in that way. The idea hadn’t even dawned on him as a possibility.

He should have known that he wouldn’t stay unnoticed for long though. Especially given the way that he’d noticed Damon’s habit of making every student feel seen and included. But at least he didn’t try to draw Enzo in this time. Maybe because Enzo didn’t seem as engaged and eager to participate this time and wasn’t actually a student so he didn’t feel the need to push the matter. Enzo did find the subject matter fascinating, for all that it was filed away in his mind for later, but he was too lost in his thoughts to pay it much attention right now. Thoughts about Damon. How vibrant and alive he was in front of a class. That light in his eyes that brought something out of Enzo that he’d noticed the night before when they were talking, but he hadn’t really been able to place beyond the fact that he liked it. Now he was wondering if he was finding the place for it.

Could he really have those sorts of feelings for his best friend? For another man at that? Sure, he noticed when other men were attractive, but that didn’t mean anything. Did it? Was it really as normal as he thought it was? Or maybe it was and there was more to it with him that he just hadn’t noticed before? It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that was talked about, and he was obviously into women, so he hadn’t worried about it. But could he be into men too? Was that even possible? Vampires did have deeper emotions than humans, and a more sexual nature though, so even if it wasn’t for humans maybe it was for vampires and he just always took the easy way out? He didn’t really like what that said about him though. That he would subconsciously follow the norm rather than blaze his own trails. Which was why the question of whether it was accepted by society didn’t concern him. But then maybe he was just reading too much into things and letting Sheila’s words get into his head. He didn’t know anything right now, and by the time the class ended, he wasn’t any closer to a conclusion. Beyond just that he loved watching Damon teach.

According to the schedule Damon didn’t have another class for a couple hours, having office hours instead, which he wasn’t going to intrude on even if he did plan to stick around. That time was strictly for the students, and he needed some time to himself to think for a while anyway. He headed for an outdoor cafe, preferring to spend time outside when he could, and taking the opportunity to enjoy human food. One of many things he’d missed in there, but not something that had come up in conversation with Damon given how many other things seemed more important. Maybe he should suggest they have dinner tonight in addition to their planned feeding trip. See how he felt on something that could be considered a date. Play with that mindset in his head while keeping things casual on the outside. Even aside from the question of whether or not Damon deserved it, which was something else he would have to come to terms with, he couldn’t bring himself to play with Damon’s heart by leading him on when Enzo had no idea what he wanted. Damon was ‘in love’ with Enzo. Which meant that Enzo needed to be at least in the same book, no matter if the same page took a while, before letting any hint of potential show.

After a contemplative meal, Enzo headed off to carry out his other planned task for the day, which was even more important now. Picking up a new guitar since Damon admitted that he’d smashed his in a temper after learning that the Augustines were still around. Music always helped him center himself and connect to and work through his feelings. As he handed over the card Damon had given him, he thought of something else and had the guy hold the order for him to throw a harmonica onto the order. He guessed that Damon had one, but he wanted one of his own for that one. Once he left the music store, he headed straight back to the apartment to make use of his bigger purchase and hopefully be able to get out of his head by the time Damon got home.

Chapter Text

Damon heard the music before he even went into the apartment when he got home after his last class, and he stopped and listened for a few minutes with a smile. He’d always wished that he could hear Enzo play. He’d heard him sing a thousand times, and often sang with him even, but he’d never heard him play before. Only when he was sure that he could go in without a ridiculously besotted look did he walk inside, dropping his briefcase on the desk. Since they were planning to go back out, he didn’t bother taking his glasses off yet. Though with the Augustine Society gone, he probably didn’t need them anymore, but Enzo’s comment of how they suited him stuck in his head. And might have been part of the reason he wasn’t taking them off now.

Enzo looked up and gave Damon a welcoming smile, finishing the song, before he set the guitar aside and asked, “Ready to go?”

“If you are,” Damon easily agreed. Their first stop, of course, was a real meal. Enzo was still recovering from his long starvation and, while he had plenty of control not to go attacking random people, once he was actually eating was a different story. Damon was spotting him, and had to stop him in time when he got too lost in it.

Once they were both full on blood, Enzo suggested, “Why don’t we grab a human dinner somewhere? Now that I’m on a more healthy diet of blood, I miss human food too.”

“Yeah, sure. I know the perfect place,” Damon grinned, wondering if Enzo had ever tried pizza before. It hadn’t been very common in the states until after the second war where Enzo had been captured, but he might have had it elsewhere in his travels around Europe. Either way, he probably wouldn’t have had modern iterations of it. “It’s not far,” he motioned Enzo to walk.

“Tony’s Pizzeria,” Enzo read the sign as they went in. “The last time I had pizza was when I was in Italy back in the thirties.”

“Yeah, this version of pizza isn’t much like the Italian version, but it’s still really good,” Damon told him as he handed over the list of available toppings so Enzo could choose. While he did have his favorites, he wasn’t picky. This was about Enzo and what he wanted, so Damon would take whatever he got.

“Better than the Italian version or no?” Enzo asked as he perused the list and considered his options.

“Apples and oranges really,” Damon chuckled. There weren’t enough similarities to really compare on that level. “They’re both delicious, but also very different.”

“Lets go with the meat lovers but add mushrooms and onions?” Enzo suggested as he made his choice.

“Sounds good to me,” Damon agreed as they placed their order and then found a table. Drinks were soon forthcoming, both of them ordering a beer in the absence of any actual booze, while they waited for their pizza.

Over the course of the meal, Enzo did carry out his intent and tried to consider how he would feel if this was a date. He also looked for any sign of Damon’s feelings for him, trying to confirm Sheila’s claim, but also try and figure out if Damon was struggling to keep things friendly or not. Only because he was looking for it did he noticed that some of Damon’s smiles were a bit softer than they otherwise would have been. Damon’s eyes caught Enzo’s a few times and there was a flash of something before he looked away. Once Damon had even started to reach for him before detouring to grab the salt instead. By the end of the meal, Enzo came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t mind so much if this were a date. But that didn’t necessarily mean he had feelings for Damon. Nor did it mean that he was over the past enough to even try something if he did.

Damon had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t a date. This was just two friends hanging out and grabbing a pizza. He would get better at this. It was just that having Enzo around was so new still, and introducing him things for the first time put this light of excitement in Enzo’s eyes that was intoxicating. He would find his footing soon enough. Until then he would just have to live with salty pizza, he thought amusedly as he added the unnecessary seasoning. At least they made it through the meal without him making a fool of himself and they headed home.

Once they got home, Enzo wanted to get back to music. But not necessarily alone. “Let’s play for a while?” he suggested hopefully, and even offered Damon the guitar.

“Yeah, I’ll stick to the keyboard,” Damon chuckled, motioning for Enzo to keep the guitar. He was decent at it, but nowhere near Enzo’s league, and wasn’t going to embarrass himself by trying.

“Fair enough, mate,” Enzo said amusedly, guessing what the problem was, and determined to get him on the guitar at some point. But it didn’t need to be today. They spent a couple hours playing music together as Enzo found himself being more drawn to Damon at seeing the peace and relaxation in his features as they played. They were respectful enough of their neighbors to quit around ten though.

“I need to get some papers graded,” Damon told him before Enzo could suggest another activity.

“Would it bother you if I watched some television while you do?” Enzo asked.

“Not at all. Not sure if there’s anything good on this time of night though,” Damon shrugged. He wasn’t sure if there was every anything good on really, but he had grabbed a tv guide on his way home that was now sitting on the coffee table. He sat down at the desk and pulled a stack of papers out of his briefcase. He’d worked his syllabuses so that he only had one class worth of papers to grade a week, and they all had a paper once a month. He wanted to finish grading this set before the next one would be turned in by Friday, two days later.

When Enzo didn’t find anything decent on the tv, he decided to just grab the book that Damon had suggested about recent history, and refilled both their drinks while he was at it, kicking back on the couch as he read. Or tried to anyway. His attention regularly strayed to Damon, watching him grade the papers as different expressions based on what he was reading flitted over his face. By the time he was headed to bed, he had gotten about half the book read despite his distraction, and dropped a hand on Damon’s shoulder as he said goodnight.

Damon was aware of Enzo’s eyes on him every time it happened, and wondered why. Whether he was just trying to get used to having Damon around too, or if he was planning some sort of revenge, or even just thinking about their time in the cells. Needless to say, he was a bit distracted too, and still had one paper left to finish by the time Enzo called it a night. He did that quickly, marking the grade on the paper and in his book, before heading to crash himself. He drained the last of his drink before stretching out on the couch where Enzo had just vacated, and got some sleep.

Damon was up early the next morning, old nightmares from the Augustines coming back, and sighed heavily as he got up and looked at the time. He had over an hour before he needed to leave and could really stand to start his day with a nice relaxing bath after that difficult night. Since Enzo wasn’t usually up before Damon left, he would even use the bubble bath. Unfortunately it wouldn’t work that way since Enzo shuffled sleepily into the bathroom not long after he’d settled into the tub, and just as he’d started taking care of his morning erection.

Enzo heard the bath running as he was waking up, and laid there for a good while trying to decide if he should take the opportunity while he had it, before he decided that it would be a shame to waste it. Figuring out what he wanted here would help them both after all. Thus, he made like he was headed for a shower to wake up, and walked into the bathroom. “Oh. Sorry, mate,” he said when he saw Damon freeze at his entrance.

“S’okay,” Damon tried to casually brush him off. “You need something?”

“Was just gonna grab a shower, but I can wait until you leave,” Enzo said, casting a long look over Damon, and definitely noticing the hand under the water, though it was clearly still at the moment. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he’d been doing. Damn bubbles in the way. And just that thought was enough to make him realize that yes. He definitely did have the hots for Damon. “Nice bubbles,” he chuckled as he left the bathroom, closing the door back behind him.

Damon let out a heavy breath, head falling back to the side of the tub behind him as he continued his previous activity. And now had the image of a sleepy Enzo in nothing but his boxers to fuel him. He just had to do it as quietly as he could and hope that Enzo didn’t hear him.

Chapter Text

Enzo did hear what Damon was doing and it was oh so tempting to do the same, but he knew that Damon would be able to hear him just as well as he could hear Damon. He was a little smarter though, waiting until Damon was done, and thus there was nothing else to hear, before running the water in the kitchen to start breakfast to cover the sound of him doing the same. He would still do breakfast anyway though. It would even serve more purposes than the one. He headed to the kitchen and started whipping up some breakfast. Not that he was the best cook and all given his past, but he knew the basics. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast would be on the menu, and he started a pot of coffee brewing too. A hint of domesticity to give Damon a good send-off to work.

Damon had been planning to stay in the bath as long as he could, but the smell of bacon soon had him getting out, and by the time he was walking out of the bathroom, dressed and ready for the day, two plates were hitting the table next to two cups of coffee. “Morning, mate. Figured I’d do up breakfast since I’m up early and all,” Enzo greeted cheerfully when Damon joined him.

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” Damon said gratefully. He didn’t eat breakfast often, finding it more of a chore than anything else, but every once in a while he got a craving. He was surprised that the eggs hadn’t gone bad, in fact. He ended up throwing them away more often than he ate them. He was tempted to add some toaster waffles to the mix, but decided to eat it as Enzo made it. Just the fact that he had meant a lot. He took a long sip of the coffee and then smirked. “Blood and bourbon. You do know how I take my coffee,” he said amusedly.

“Not that hard to figure out,” Enzo laughed, raising his cup to clink against Damon’s. He took his the same way.

They had a companionable breakfast until Damon had to head out, hesitating for half a second before walking out the door. They were just friends, he had to remind himself again. Enzo made breakfast because he was up and missed human food. That was all it was. That reminder didn’t bring down his mood too much though. It had still been a nice morning, after all.

Once Damon left, Enzo let a smile slip over his face. Yes, he could get used to this. And he’d noticed Damon’s minute hesitation too. Like he’d wanted to do something else. It wasn’t hard to figure out what it was, and he almost wished that Damon had done it. He wondered what it might be like to kiss him. There was a big difference between having the hots for someone and acting on it, after all. He wasn’t sure what it would feel like to kiss a guy, even beyond not being sure what he was feeling emotionally either. There was still so much pain and confusion and bitterness there from the past. He was working through it, but it was still there right now and clouding things up.

As he cleaned up from breakfast and washed the dishes, he let his mind wander back over it, trying to let more go. Reminding himself that he hadn’t been left on purpose. Well, not completely. He’d been /left/ on purpose…he thought…but he hadn’t been forgotten. He hadn’t been abandoned back to that cold cell without a second thought. Damon thought he was dead. He thought he’d destroyed the Augustines. As soon as he learned otherwise, he’d come. Which meant that all he could /really/ blame Damon for was leaving him in the first place. And turning off his humanity to do it. Knowing that and feeling it were two different things though.

Once he finished cleaning up from breakfast, he went out to the balcony and sat down with his guitar again, taking some time to work through the feelings. He hadn’t gotten much time the previous day before Damon got home, after all. He took a few reading and television breaks over the course of the day catching up on the world, but mostly just played with his guitar and a little bit with Damon’s keyboard, until Damon got back. “I ordered chinese,” Enzo told him. “It should be here soon. How amazing is it that you can call someone and get food delivered right to you?”

“Yeah, it’s definitely a nice convenience,” Damon chuckled as he set his briefcase on the desk and took off his glasses for the day. “Pizza delivers too, in case you weren’t aware.”

“I noticed that too,” Enzo nodded. “But I’ve never had Chinese food before and wanted to give it a try.” He didn’t know what Damon liked either so he’d just gotten all three different sampler meals that covered most everything on the menu. He wouldn’t realize just how much food that was until it arrived. “Bloody hell, this’ll feed us for a week,” he exclaimed as Damon kept pulling things out of the bag.

“Probably,” Damon laughed and grabbed his favorites, which he would, of course, let Enzo try, understanding the purpose of the variety. Since he’d finished his grading the previous night, that night was just spent hanging out, and Damon had even stopped to rent a few must-see movies on the way home. The ones that everyone knew. Including the first two Star Wars movies. They were talking about a third coming out in a couple years. They got through those two and ET that night, making it a sci-fi night. They would get the Godfather movies and Citizen Kane tomorrow and move on from there. He wasn’t touching the romance genre. Or musicals despite how much Enzo would like musicals due to the romance in most of those.

Before they went to bed, Damon reminded Enzo that the cable guys would be there in the morning so he would need to stick around until after they were done. He then left a check made out to the cable company with just the amount to be filled in and showed Enzo how to do that so they would be set if Enzo wasn’t up before he left. Damon only had one class that day, and the rest of the day finished off his minimum weekly office hours. He preferred to have his weekends free. By the time he got home the next day, the cable guys were gone and Enzo was playing with the new remote that he was quick to pass on the tutorial for as they browsed through the guide to see what new options they had. Damon got the biggest bundle of channels of course so Enzo would have plenty of variety.

After their browsing, they decided to go and get some feeding in before getting into anything. Damon led them a different direction than usual so Enzo could see more of the area, and soon realized his mistake when Enzo spotted a movie theater. “Hey, why don’t we see a movie on the big screen? I bet those dark theaters are good places to eat too.”

“You’re not wrong,” Damon gave a tense chuckle as he pulled in. He would deny Enzo nothing. Even if this would feel even more like a date. Maybe they could just keep some distance aside from the eating where Damon would still be spotting Enzo.

They used the previews to snack on the other attendees, and Enzo did much better with his control that time. Damon even only had to tap him on the shoulder for the first one and the rest he was fine with. By the time the opening credits were rolling they were finding their own seats and Enzo followed Damon, taking the seat next to him. It didn’t dawn on him what he was doing to Damon, so enamored with the new experiences, that everything else was just running on instinct. He’d seen a few old silent movies in theaters, but everything about this was completely different. He didn’t even notice the few times his hand brushed against Damon’s on the armrest between them. He would never get over these new-fangled special effects that these movies were able to pull off. He still liked Star Wars the best though, but this one, Scanners, was pretty good too.

Chapter Text

The next day, Damon and Enzo were sitting on the couch with the tv on in the background, working on the grocery list while they munched on some of the leftover Chinese food. Enzo’s eyes keep trailing to Damon’s lips as he talked, wondering more and more what it would be like to kiss him, until the urge overwhelmed him and he just acted impulsively.

Damon’s attention was firmly on the list, trying to ignore how domestic this whole thing was, as he considered other things to add. He popped the last of his egg roll in his mouth as he asked around it, “Did you want to add some funyuns to the…” was as far as he got before Enzo’s lips were on his, and he was too surprised to even react before they were gone.

“Huh…” Enzo said thoughtfully. That had definitely felt right. Just that chaste little peck was enough for him to realize that this was exactly what he wanted. He might have held it longer or even tried to deepen it if he didn’t realize as he did it that Damon’s mouth was full.

Damon was completely baffled over what the hell just happened as he tried to burn the moment into his memory. It definitely wasn’t the best first kiss, but it was a kiss from the love of his life nonetheless. And possibly the only one he would ever get. That ‘huh’ was a sign that it was just an experiment after all, and he had no idea whether it would be repeated. It wasn’t too long though before he recovered enough to make a joke, “If I’d known you liked funyuns /that/ much…” he laughed as he finished the bite in his mouth.

Enzo shook his head amusedly as he said, “You’re an idiot,” and then grabbed the front of Damon’s shirt and pulled him into another kiss. A much better one this time. Especially since Damon actually kissed him back. Yes, this was exactly what he wanted. Except now he knew that they needed to talk out what happened before. He at least needed the answer to his biggest remaining question of that day if they were going to put this all behind them. He broke the kiss, trying to get his breathing back under control, but couldn’t resist going back for one more quick one before he was able to follow through.

“E-Enzo?” Damon breathed out, not daring to hope this meant that his greatest dreams were coming true. He needed some kind of explanation though. Something to stop his mind from conjuring ideas that would break him when the rug was pulled out from under him.

Enzo managed a deep shaky breath before he asked, “Why did you turn it off back then? Just so you could leave me to die?”

Damon closed his eyes against the pain of the memory that Enzo had conjured, a dose of cold water if ever there was one, as he turned away. “I never meant to leave you, Enzo. I-I turned it off because…because the idea of watching you die was tearing me apart. I-I couldn’t take it.”

“Because you’re in love with me,” Enzo said/asked, slotting that reasoning into place as everything started making sense. And that changed everything. Damon wasn’t trying to leave. He might have been tempted to do the same in Damon’s place.

Damon knew where all this was coming from now. Sheila had blabbed and Enzo was curious. He wasn’t going to respond to that though. /Couldn’t/ respond to that. Saying yes only to have Enzo walk away would break him all over again. Saying no would be a bald-faced lie, and while he didn’t have anything against lying when the situation called for it, he couldn’t lie about this. Not to Enzo. He wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to lie to Enzo about anything. So he did the only thing he could think to do. Retreat. He snatched the list from the table as he got up and said, “Might as well go ahead and get the grocery shopping done.”

Enzo was up right after him and Damon didn’t even make it to the door before Enzo spun him around, pushing his back against the wall. “Damon, don’t,” he said softly, reaching his hand to Damon’s cheek, moving to meet Damon’s eyes as they tried to avoid him. “Don’t run,” he said earnestly once Damon finally met his eyes, letting them and his hand on Damon’s cheek tell the story.

Damon’s breath hitched as he saw the emotion in Enzo’s eyes. Much more than simple curiosity. He couldn’t help but lean into his touch as his eyes fluttered closed and the single word answer to Enzo’s question fell from his lips. “Yeah,” he whispered almost inaudibly.

“I-I think…I’m in love with you too,” Enzo whispered, causing Damon’s eyes to snap back open again, and give him a searching look. Enzo’s thumb moved from Damon’s jaw to brush over his lips which was Damon’s cue to pull him in for a kiss this time. Soft and slow and full of hope and promise.

Damon felt everything he needed to feel in that kiss and finally believed this was actually happening. That this was real. He was grinning happily as the kiss broke and he leaned his forehead against Enzo’s, both of them breathing heavily. “I’m still gonna shishkabob a witch though,” he laughed.

“I say just buy her a fruit basket instead,” Enzo chuckled. “It might help to know that she only said anything when I made a play for her. To let me know she was turning me down out of loyalty to you.”

“Hmm. Maybe,” Damon said amusedly, stealing another kiss as he backed Enzo towards the couch. “I didn’t exactly tell her to keep it secret after all.” Though it should have been implied. Especially since he hadn’t expected her to ever know who it was he was talking about, thinking that Enzo was dead at the time. Maybe he would give her a break though.

“We’ll add a fruit basket to the shopping list,” Enzo joked as the back of his knees hit the couch and he fell over, pulling Damon on top of him and into another eager kiss as they adjusted more comfortably on the couch and hands started wandering soon followed by lips. As Enzo teased his lips and tongue over Damon’s neck, he teasingly said, “Oh yeah, weren’t you about to go shopping?”

“Screw shopping,” Damon huffed a laugh, but then paused and pulled back just a bit. “But if that’s a hint to slow down…”

He got that answer when Enzo yanked him back down, shifting them around to get more body contact. Only for a moment though before he was the one to pull back enough to say breathlessly, “But if we are going to take this farther, the bed would be much more comfortable don’t you think?”

“Bed sounds good to me,” Damon breathed out as he trailed a line of kisses down Enzo’s jaw and neck, while Enzo stripped off his shirt. He managed to pull himself away enough to get up, pulling Enzo to his feet as well, and stripping his shirt off too on the way to the bedroom. By the time they tumbled into the bed together they were down to just their underwear. Boxers for Enzo and boxer-briefs for Damon. Not that they stayed on long either. Neither of them had ever been with a man before, but they were just letting instinct drive them. And hormones. Even if not for the fact that Enzo had been dry for four decades, vampires were a very sexual species for a reason. There was no slow working up to it once they knew what they wanted and they barely left the bed for the rest of the day.

One of the few times they did leave the bed was to take a nice long bath together, at which point, Enzo told Damon, kissing a line down his shoulder, “You should move back into your room.”

“With you?” Damon wanted to confirm that he wasn’t just trying to switch and give Damon his room back.

“Naturally,” Enzo drawled, turning Damon’s head for a loving kiss. “No reason to stay apart anymore is there?”

“No. There’s not,” Damon sighed happily, leaning back into Enzo’s arms. “I love you,” he whispered, saying the words aloud for the first time.

“And I love you, Damon,” Enzo sighed contentedly. It had been staring him in the face all along and he’d completely missed it. He hated so deeply for so long because he loved so deeply. And now that the hate was gone, the love had the space to shine. He wasn’t sure yet if they would be forever, but they probably would. A flame that burns that long without fuel would become a blaze now. Either way, forever or not, this was exactly where he wanted to be now. For both of them. After their bath, they made their way back to the bed where they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms for the first time of many.

Chapter Text

The next day, Damon and Enzo did get around to doing the grocery shopping, and even remembered to get a fruit basket for Sheila that they would give her the next day since she had Damon’s class last. They didn’t try to hide their relationship, so the trip was spent with plenty of teasing, affection, and even a few stolen kisses, not caring about the looks they got. Enzo never really cared about convention in the first place. He’d always gone for who he liked, even when it was ‘scandalous’. Damon cared much more in general, but he loved Enzo enough that he didn’t care who knew. Even if it meant compelling someone to keep him from being fired when it went public. As it probably would before long given that Damon ended up greeting a few of his students while shopping. Which was why he was wearing his glasses even beyond the fact that Enzo loved them so much. Even started calling him ‘professor sexy-specs’.

The next day, Enzo sat in on Damon’s last class of the day, which was Sheila’s class, and he grabbed a seat next to her. Like the last time, he fully participated in the class and had fun with it, but was careful not to take any learning away from the students who needed it. He’d even found time to skim the course book that Damon had laying around. Not that he planned to attend every class. Or even too many of them. Wouldn’t want to take away from the actual students. But sometimes it was fun and this time had a purpose. When class was over, they invited Sheila to Damon’s office where they gave her the fancy fruit basket. “You should thank Enzo. I was gonna shishkabob you, but Enzo suggested a fruit basket instead,” Damon joked.

“Seemed more fitting given the end result,” Enzo chuckled, sealing a kiss from his love.

Sheila laughed, shaking her head at their antics. “You two are a trip. I’m glad you worked it out.” Maybe she’d see if her mother would be willing to keep Abby for a couple hours a week outside of classes so she could hang out with both of them. Friends from school she’d have to call them since her mother still didn’t know about her being friendly with vampires. She would be pleased that her mother agreed and, in fact, had been worried about her burning out with doing nothing but school and parenting. Thus, Saturday afternoons became the hangout for the three supernaturals on campus, usually at the cafe since Damon was very conscious of the message it would send to have a student in his apartment. Maybe come summer he could invite her over. She would have taken all his classes and no longer be his student by then even though she still had one more year of school left to get her bachelor’s and was planning to continue to her master’s after that if not all the way to her doctorate. That would be more difficult though since it would involve field work and research trips and most of the time, the ones running those trips wouldn’t allow family to come along.

It was February when Damon was approached by the head of the social sciences department who was a doctor of archaeology. He had an opening for an anthropologist on his trip to the Congo leaving at the end of the semester. He secretly hoped to retire in the next few years and wanted to groom Damon as his replacement. He was really getting too old to be hiking through mountains, across deserts, fighting through rainforests, and so on. Damon thought it sounded like a great adventure so once he made sure Enzo could come along, using compulsion to ensure it, he was all in. He’d always loved the research trips when he was going for his own doctorate and now with Enzo along it would be a hundred times better. Then realized that he probably should have talked to Enzo first, but Enzo was happy to go too. He loved traveling and adventure just as much as Damon did.

That meant that they both started studying the Lingala language in specific and the generalities of the Bantu language family. There were something like five hundred Bantu languages spoken in the region, with Lingala being the most common in the Congo area, but many tribes had their own unique dialects. They hoped that with a good grounding in the language family as well as fluency in the common language, they would be able to communicate well enough. They had almost four months which was plenty of time for a vampire. By the time Damon got his final grades in for the year, they were packed and ready to go. They would be spending a month there investigating a system of caves that was discovered in the Mayombe mountains that had a lot of what they thought were cave drawings or writings.

Enzo was billed as a general assistant as far as the logs went since he wasn’t a doctor or a doctoral candidate. He was happy to lend a hand wherever though. He and Damon ended up being instrumental in preventing a standoff with the natives in the area. The Yombe. Their lanugage had enough similarities to Lingala that they were able to communicate well enough, though there were still some struggles. They didn’t want people ‘plundering’ the caves of the ancestors. Damon and Enzo translated for the head of the trip as they promised that everything would be treated with the utmost respect and that nothing of significance would be removed. They just wanted to learn about their ancestors and take those teachings out into the world so they could be remembered by all. They knew how to spin a good story.

They still ended up having to accept a local ‘supervisor’ from the tribe, which Doctor Pontier wasn’t happy about, but Damon sold him on it with the simple fact that having a local guide through the caves, who could give them more context for things that were foreign to them, could only be helpful. The man eventually agreed, but only because Damon and Enzo proved easily able to communicate and translate, and that became Enzo’s new official job. Sticking with the local and translating. Pontier was very impressed with them both and their language skills despite the difference of opinion to start with, and he soon realized just how invaluable Kato was as they moved through the caves. He helped them avoid a few traps when he recognized the warnings in time. He also helped Damon with the cave drawings and in some areas rudimentary writings. Helped Pontier dicipher the purpose of some of the artifacts that were found.

Since Damon and Enzo had build such a great rapport with Kato who trusted them completely, they were even able to negotiate the removal of some of the more interesting artifacts for study with the promise that they would be returned as the law dictated. They even gave him laminated photos of everything removed to take back to his people so they would know that everything that was taken was returned within five years. A negotiation that they also had to have with the legitimate government who would have given them ten years, which was what the paperwork said as they got it all packed up to go back.

The trip had certainly been an adventure, and they were glad that they’d been right about the natives being so close. It meant that they were easily able to sneak off for meals and didn’t have to try and figure out how to get blood. There usually were natives around most ancient sites though, so it wasn’t likely to be a problem. Especially with vampire speed able to get them to the nearest village or settlement in record time. There had been a few close calls with rockslides, dangerous wildlife, and rogue natives who didn’t like /any/ deal that was made, but they had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit. That trip was enough to decide Damon to continue on his current life course. Including the teaching. Without these trips to break up the monotony he’d probably get bored with it after a while, but the combination of the two was the perfect balance for him.

Enzo was completely supportive of that idea, and even decided to start taking classes himself. He’d been fascinated by archaeological anthropology while Damon had studied cultural anthropology with a sub-specialty in mythology. Enzo wasn’t sure where he wanted to specialize yet, but definitely wanted to get into archaeology. While he wouldn’t use compulsion to skip as much as Damon did, jumping straight to the doctorate work, he would pick and choose what classes to take prior to that. He didn’t feel the need to worry about all the general education classes, though would take some that looked interesting. As soon as they got back, he set about registering for the fall semester, including the first section of both Damon’s classes. Anthropology would be required, but mythology would count for an elective while the rest of his classes would be geared towards archeology.

Chapter Text

Enzo would end up taking a year for his bachelor’s, the full year for his master’s since all those classes seemed interesting, and a year for his doctorate. Mostly since Damon made sure he got field credit for all the trips they took before that, meaning that all he needed to worry about was the lab work. They even ended up taking a second shorter trip to Egypt to check out a newly uncovered tomb there that summer. They got a couple weeks in between to hang out with Sheila and even got to meet nine year old Abby though. Who wouldn’t know they were vampires for fear that she might tell her grandmother. Sheila did get an invite to Damon and Enzo’s apartment though now that she’d taken all of Damon’s classes and thus could no longer be considered his student for her last year for her undergrad degree. Damon stayed her mentor though and he and Enzo were her best friends regardless.

Damon wasn’t as worried about the whole dating a student issue when Enzo ended up taking his classes. They’d been together before that, not to mention they were both over a hundred year old vampires. There wouldn’t be a power imbalance with them even though Damon did have Enzo’s grades in his hands. Enzo knew better than to think that Damon would grade him anything but fairly no matter what else happened, and Damon knew better than to think that Enzo would ask him to. Compelling his way out of unnecessary classes was one thing, but if a class was considered interesting or useful enough to actually take, Enzo wanted to succeed or fail on his own merits just as Damon had.

By the time Sheila and Enzo finished their master’s, Damon had been elevated to the head of department after Doctor Pontier had retired. The most recent trip to the Amazon had taken too much out of him at his age and he couldn’t take anymore. It was only thanks to his recommendation that someone so ‘young’ took over for him. Or it could have been the compulsion that Damon used. Either way, Damon was now the head of the department, which meant that he would be in charge of any research trips and work with the doctoral candidates. That and he got to pick and choose the funnest classes to teach. When Sheila admitted that she wanted to continue for her doctorate, and even become a teacher/researcher like Damon, but wasn’t sure how she would manage Abby, Damon now had the power to fix that himself.

He assured her that Abby would be welcome on any of their research trips as a ‘general assistant’. Which, at her age, basically meant fetching and carrying as she got to see the world and learn more than she would in any school. She was old enough to know better than to go touching things she shouldn’t and old enough that her magic was fully under control too, so there wouldn’t be any accidents. Aside from the trips, the biggest problem she would have was how much time she would be required to spend in labs and doing other work, but Damon reminded her that there was no rule that said she couldn’t just take more time. Most doctoral candidates put in twelve hour days minimum, but she could do half that and just take longer to finish. That meant she was his student again too and Damon hoped that, one day, the three of them could end up as a top research team.

They had similar fields, but enough difference to all bring something new to the table. Damon’s cultural anthropology, Enzo’s archaeological anthropology, and Sheila’s mythology and religion. Enzo was a bit more dubious about taking a teaching position along with the research, but he decided to give it a try. He liked people well enough and it might be fun. Damon certainly had fun with it. It didn’t take Enzo long to realize that he enjoyed it too. All those young minds to open and expand. He took a similar teaching style to Damon, who was widely considered the best teacher at the college. Or at least the most popular. And it wasn’t even because of his looks.

Sheila enjoyed teaching too, having gotten the bug in that class of Damon’s where he brought her up to explain her paper. She took over teaching the undergrad occult studies courses. She didn’t publish as much individual research, though was often cited as a co-author on Damon’s and Enzo’s work. She preferred to dedicate her outside study to magic. Even on the research trips, her main purpose was to find old and forgotten magic, which she succeeded in most of the time. If she considered the vague references to it as success. But since it did give her a place to start recreating it more often than not, she did. It would be the work of many lifetimes to recreate it all, but she hoped to start a new family trend where her descendants would take over once she was gone.

She hadn’t been long got her doctorate when Abby was fifteen, that her mother died from a backfiring spell. She ended up taking a few weeks off, and Damon was happy to cover her classes while she was gone. He and Enzo supported her as much as they could through her loss. At least Abby was old enough by then that there was no problem with her being alone for a few hours after school while her mother worked. That was also when Abby was introduced to the idea of vampires and that ‘uncles’ Damon and Enzo were vampires. She hadn’t yet started her magical study on vampires, which meant that she hadn’t been poisoned against the idea by her grandmother, so she was perfectly accepting of them. She even helped her mother come up with an enchantment over the next few years that would keep people from questioning their lack of aging. Technically, she learned more than she helped, but she was still proud of being a part of it.

The enchantment was put into an amulet that they wore, and would affect people’s perceptions enough that they wouldn’t notice the age they appeared or think anything odd about it. It wouldn’t affect records, so they would still have to move on from their jobs eventually, but they could get a good fifty or sixty years out of it before they had to move on. Or start over as their kids. They would probably end up doing both though. They had bigger universities and research stations trying to poach them already, but Damon figured he might as well stick around at least long enough to get the tomb taken care of in two thousand nine. And when Bonnie was born in ninety-two, halfway through Abby’s college years, they decided to extend it to teach her just like he did her mother and grandmother. They were still making a good name for themselves in the field regardless of how small their school was. And they were giving the college a good name too. The college that was now called Pontier College.

Once Doctor Whitmore had gone crazy and killed so many people, as per the public story, talk had started about changing the name of the school to avoid that stain on their reputation. Like most things though, it was a long time in committee. Damon and Enzo were, obviously, all for renaming the college, so once Doctor Pontier retired, they decided to help it along. It was a good enough excuse, and the man had been there since the college was founded in nineteen thirty-five. Not to mention all the humanitarian programs he'd founded through his career. He was a fitting person to name the college after, so Damon and Enzo made the rounds with compulsion through the naming committee to make sure it went through. It bugged them a bit that there was still a Whitmore House, but they decided against being heavy handed enough to change that too.

Damon and Enzo did end up facing quite a bit of discrimination over their relationship, but thankfully no one dared try to physically attack them like so many did. And while they weren’t going to go around compelling people to accept them, they didn’t have any problem using compulsion to keep them from any consequences of discrimination. Including preventing them from losing their jobs or being barred from establishments. That was just around the school though. When they were traveling the world, they did end up needing to eat a few people who got violent over it, but they just appreciated the meals and called it a day. Even Sheila, much as she hated the idea of them killing, couldn’t blame them for that. Nor could she blame them for any of the other people they killed. The worst of the worst that the law failed to protect people from, they did. She just hated that it was necessary. As did Abby. When her husband Rudy turned out to be much less accepting, he was just compelled to forget it. There was no reason he needed to know that they killed at all. Their ‘family’ as they considered the Bennetts by then loved them anyway and that was what mattered.

Chapter Text

Damon had been studiously avoiding Mystic Falls for the most part ever since he’d been captured there in fifty-three, but when, in ninety-four, Sheila told him that Stefan was visiting, he decided to give it a shot. It helped that Joey Salvatore, the boy he’d orphaned back then, had passed a couple years earlier so he wouldn’t have to face him. He may not have had a lot of luck with Salvatores in the past, but they were still his family. Reconnecting with his brother may have been the main reason he was going, but not the only reason. He had a lot more freedom in his schedule now as the head of the department, and even had two TAs that could run his classes when he wasn’t available, which meant there was no impediment to him going to check in on his brother and try to reconnect.

Enzo was the one to suggest that he stay away for the moment. He didn’t want to interfere, or to let their relationship be the thing that pushed Stefan back away. Once they had things fixed between them and found their way to being brothers again, Enzo could be introduced and Stefan could be brought into their family. Maybe even with the rest of the Salvatores too. If their relationship still pushed Stefan away after that, then it was on him, but knowing about it up front might make him less likely to even try. Even beyond the fact that he would have given anything for a brother and knew how precious that relationship was, he knew how badly Damon wanted his brother back in his life too. They needed to reconnect to each other before bringing any wild cards into the mix.

Damon disagreed, but respected his partner’s decision, so in early April he made his way to the boarding house for the first time since that fateful night more than thirty years ago. He paused outside to just look at it and get past the initial fear and revulsion over being back here before he went to the door and rang the bell. The boarding house may have been open to the public, but it wasn’t open to vampires without an invitation regardless. When Stefan was the one to answer the door, he knew that he’d been spotted outside. And that Stefan didn’t want him to come in, given that he wouldn’t be able to invite him. “Haven’t seen you in fifty years, Stefan. You’re not gonna invite a brother in?”

“Give me one good reason why I should,” Stefan said stubbornly, still stinging over what he’d done to Lexi before. She’d almost died for nothing more than trying to help Damon. And that she’d done it at Stefan’s request just made it worse.

“I just want to reconnect to my family, Stefan,” Damon sighed. “Maybe even get my brother back finally. But if you’re just gonna throw me out on my ear without even trying…”

“Oh, I’ll try,” Stefan told him and Damon noticed him gesture towards the other room. “But know this, brother. I’m watching you. And if you step out of line, I’ve promised Zach that I’ll take care of it.”

“Come in, Damon,” Zach said nervously, not at all sold on this after everything he’d heard about the elder Salvatore brother, but he trusted Stefan enough to give him a chance.

“Thank you, brother,” Damon said gratefully as he stepped inside. “Let’s have a drink, shall we?” He was just as nervous about Zach as Zach apparently was about him. Especially when he figured out that he was on vervain and thus couldn’t be compelled not to attack him. Even his pregnant girlfriend was on vervain. He vowed to find it and get them off long enough to get them compelled. He wasn’t going to have a repeat of fifty-three. The Augustines may be gone, but the Salvatores were still vampire hunters. He had a foot in the door though, and that was the important thing, so he started building a bridge. First with his brother.

Stefan was glad to find that Damon didn’t intend to stay at the boarding house, and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth by questioning where he /was/ staying. Nor did he question what Damon did with his time when he wasn’t there in the afternoons and some evenings. He was keeping an eye on the surrounding area for suspicious deaths and disappearances though, and when there weren’t any he hoped that meant that Damon really was following his rules. That he wasn’t feeding on people. He still hoped to work Damon onto the animal blood, but he could live with the blood bags for now. Every journey had to start somewhere and he would meet his brother halfway to start with. He was worried that this was just another step of Damon’s eternity of misery, but he had to at least try.

Damon started slow with Stefan, just trying to connect. He didn’t want to give him too much information about his life until he could be sure that Stefan wouldn’t react badly. A few subtle comments and questions told him that Stefan had no idea how close Damon had been to Mystic Falls for so long, and that alone hurt. It wasn’t like he was keeping a low profile. He was something of a public figure, and even under his real name. Granted it wasn’t in circles that Stefan was likely to run in, but if Stefan had so much as tried to look him up at any point in the last fifteen years, he would have known. Not that he didn’t already suspect that Stefan didn’t know. If he had, Stefan would have shown up all accusing and trying to run him out of the area. Which was why he wasn’t telling him until Stefan loosened up a bit.

In the effort to get him to loosen up, he did pretend to be following Stefan’s blood bag rule, even though he was continuing his normal feeding practices at home, going out with Enzo a few evenings a week. He only had two afternoon classes a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays, which he did teach, but left the grading to the TAs while he was working on Stefan so he could have the rest of his time free. Those days he didn’t make it to Mystic Falls until around three and stayed until midnight. The rest of the days he was there around noon and left in the evening to spend some time with his partner, and they settled into a nice routine.

Damon let Stefan take the lead in tinkering with Damon’s car as a bonding opportunity and they talked movies and music and books. Basically anything they could talk about without Stefan finding out how close Damon was to the town and thus trying to force him away. There were a thousand ways Stefan could sabotage his job and his life there even around Damon’s compulsions which were light enough to keep from messing with people’s minds overmuch. And the fact that Stefan was even interfering as much as he could with Damon spending any time with Zach or Gail just made it clear that he would do it. At least he hadn’t been able to prevent it completely and Damon got enough time with them to figure out where they kept their vervain and change out the coffee.

By the time the eclipse party rolled around a few days after that, they should be clear. That was a day that Damon had an afternoon class, but he had his TA take it over this time so he could be at the party. Particularly so that he could be there early, when Stefan wasn’t expecting him, to get the compulsions done on Zach and Gail, starting with a taste test. Once he made sure that they could never tell anyone about Stefan, him, or even Enzo despite them not knowing him, being vampires and that they couldn’t attack without cause, he could rest much easier and just enjoy the party.

That had been the plan at least, until he noticed Stefan coming at him with a look that said he was pissed. He compelled the cute blonde he’d been flirting with to go home and forget all about him lest she get caught in some sort of crossfire, and turned to meet his brother’s temper. What he wasn’t expecting was to have his neck broken and wake up in the shed. At least the main event of the party was over so he wouldn’t be missing the eclipse. Though once he noticed that his daylight ring was missing he would be a little more bitter about that fact.

Chapter Text

Damon woke up with a groan, head pounding in the telltale manner of having his neck broken. Something he was relatively familiar with due to all the times that he and Enzo sparred over the years. The broken neck was a KO in their matches. But he doubted that Stefan would be handing him a blood bag to kill the headache. Before he could even get his bearings, Stefan was speaking. “So here’s what I don’t get, Damon. Why did you insinuate yourself back into my life and then cheat and lie? Break all the rules?”

“Well I lied because I knew you’d be mad,” Damon groaned, trying to work the kinks out of his muscles from the temporary death. “Believe it or not, I like being here Stefan.” When he started to walk over, he ended up in a beam of sunlight and felt the pain of burning, making hiss and jump back again.

“You’ll get your daylight ring back when you decide to behave,” Stefan said stubbornly. “Now. Answer my question. Why’d you come back here?”

“Because I missed my brother,” Damon said bitterly. “I wanted to connect to my family again. Is that really so awful?”

“When you seem intent on bringing misery and pain everywhere you go? Yeah. It is,” Stefan said just as bitterly. Leave it to Damon to go around hurting people and then play the victim. Feeding on a pregnant woman was a new low.

“Way to be an optimist, Stefan,” Damon scoffed. He hadn’t brought any pain and misery to anyone, but of course Stefan just assumed he was going to.

“Just looking at the facts, Damon,” Stefan pointed out. “Nineteen twelve you convince me to drink human blood again which was why I became a ripper. Nineteen forty two you almost pushed me off the rails again because you were so damn needy. Nineteen seventy-seven you were so far off the rails that I had to send Lexi to straighten you out. And now, I’m finally happy. I have a new life. I’m doing well, and uh…you just can’t handle that, can you Damon?”

“I’m not trying to screw up your dumb new life,” Damon snapped in irritation.

“You don’t have to try, Damon. All you have to do is exist. Because no matter what I do or where I go you will be with me forever, trying to destroy every single thing that I build. I don’t know why I thought that this time would be any different. I wanted it to be different. But you just keep failing,” Stefan said miserably before walking off. So much for hoping this eternity of misery was over. Hoping that he could finally have his brother back. Every time he got his hopes up they got dashed all over again. He’d hoped that maybe waiting for Damon to be the one to reach out would make it better, but clearly that didn’t help either.

Damon took a few deep breaths for calm so he didn’t risk losing his temper. In the current situation that would end up bringing this whole rickety shed down around him and he couldn’t be sure he’d be able to make it to the house before he turned to ash in the sun. If only Stefan had pulled this /before/ the eclipse, he’d have that escape handy, but he supposed not even Stefan was that stupid. So now he was stuck here for…he checked his watch…four hours. Four hours just sitting in a holey shed waiting for the sun to go down.

That gave him plenty of time to stew over this though and steel himself for his decision. He was done with Stefan for good. And when he could hear Stefan inside telling Zach and Gail what he’d done and them being glad of it, he decided he was done with the Salvatores for good too. Even when he did need to come back to Mystic Falls in fifteen years, he would steer clear of them as much as possible. He wondered what Stefan expected to happen once the sun went down, especially when he heard them suggesting that they clear out before then, and maybe even offer the guests an evening in the city for a show, on Stefan’s dime even. If he had to spend all night tracking his brother down to get his ring back, he’d wring the little bastard’s neck.

It felt like forever before the sun finally went down, and he was glad to hear that Stefan was still in the house. Up in his room if Damon wasn’t mistaken. He blurred around the house, jumping up to the balcony, and busted in the double doors to get inside. Before Stefan could even blink, Damon had him pinned against the wall by his neck. “I’ll never be rid of you will I?” Stefan croaked, most of his air cut off by Damon’s hand.

“In nineteen twelve, I showed you who you were, Stefan,” Damon said coldly. Showed him that he was a vampire. And how dangerous his diet was, even if that hadn’t been his intent. That Stefan had taken the opposite message from it didn’t change that. “In nineteen forty-two, I gave you your freedom.” Fifty years for Stefan to get steady on the ridiculous diet he’d chosen for himself before Damon tried to become brothers again. “In nineteen seventy-seven, I almost killed your best friend because it should have been /you/ there to help me.” After everything he’d done for Stefan and Stefan couldn’t even spare the time to come himself. “You owe me better than this, Stefan. But I’ll settle for my ring back,” Damon said dangerously.

“Only if you agree to leave. To leave me and the rest of the family alone from now on,” Stefan tried to stand his ground. The very deal he’d always planned on making once Damon got out. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep his ring away from him forever. He just wanted to give him enough time to suffer that he would consider the deal. The number of people Damon could and probably would kill to force his hand if he tried to keep it wouldn’t be worth it, and even now he couldn’t bring himself to actually /kill/ his brother.

“Fine,” Damon snapped. “You have a deal. I’m done with you and I’m done with them. All you Salvatores can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned. But know this, Stefan. You ever come after me or mine in the future…I /will/ destroy everything you’ve ever cared about. Understood?”

Stefan fumbled in his pocket for Damon’s ring and held it up. “You go your way, I go mine. I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone.”

Damon snatched the ring from Stefan’s hand, slid it on his finger, and was back out the broken balcony door in the blink of an eye. As he drove back to his real home, and his partner, he came to terms with the fact that he’d had his final break with his family. He might consider forgiving Stefan for this someday if his brother ever opened his eyes to reality, but even then it would take at least a little groveling. And he knew better than to ever expect that from his brother.

He skidded into his parking spot outside the apartment building he still shared with his love and thumped up the stairs, feeling a bit too claustrophobic after all that time trapped in the shed to take the elevator. It wasn’t like vampires could get tired going up ten flights of stairs after all. When he got inside, he found Enzo sitting at his desk grading papers, and decided they could wait as he grabbed Enzo in a hard desperate kiss. He just needed to forget right now, and no one could make him forget like his beloved.

At Damon’s entrance, Enzo easily figured out that something had happened to cause a blowup, but he could get details later. Right now, as always, he would be anything Damon needed, so he was happy to let himself be dragged to the bedroom where they would stay for the rest of the night. What started as rough and energetic eventually became slow and loving, and Enzo finally figured it would be okay to ask what happened. Once he got the story, not even Enzo would push Damon to try again. Even without the deal, it was Stefan who needed to bridge this gap, if ever it was to be bridged at all. Stefan had crossed a line, and Enzo had every intention of supporting Damon in cutting him out. Should a miracle happen and Stefan came crawling back, hat in hand, maybe things could be different. But after this, he wasn’t holding his breath anymore than Damon was. He would just have to face the facts that sometimes even families could be broken beyond repair. Sad as it was.

Chapter Text

Damon soon put the mess out of his mind and continued on with his life, but it wouldn’t be long before Mystic Falls drama intruded again. At least this one had nothing to do with the Salvatores, but it took a while before they even figured out what it /was/ about. One moment Damon was headed to the parking lot to catch up to Enzo, and the next thing he knew he was waking up from yet another broken neck, and was strung up to an unrecognizable ceiling with vervain-soaked ropes. “It won’t do any good, love,” Enzo spoke up as Damon struggled. “Whoever got us has us good.”

“Do you know who it is? Or why?” Damon asked worriedly, looking Enzo up and down to make sure that he was at least reasonably alright. As alright as they could be in the current situation, anyway.

“Another vampire. And a bloody old one too. That’s all I’ve got,” Enzo said regretfully.

“I am Mikael,” the vampire in question walked in. “And you will tell me what I wish to know and die quickly, or prevaricate and die slowly.”

“I think I’m gonna vote for not dying at all,” Damon said sarcastically.

“That is not an option,” Mikael said. “It is my life’s mission to wipe out the scourge of vampirism from the world.”

“And you thought Stefan had self-image issues,” Enzo said wryly.

Mikael ignored the comment and told them, “The only reason you have survived thus far is because you have information that I require.”

“And just asking like a normal person never occurred to you, clearly,” Damon quipped.

“You will tell me what you know of the doppelganger child, how the bastard offspring learned of her, and how much you have reported to him about her,” Mikael said dangerously.

“Pretty sure you got the wrong guys, mate,” Enzo huffed.

“You expect me to believe that it is simple coincidence that two random vampires are stationed so close to doppelganger that Niklaus has been searching for more than a millennia?” Mikael scoffed.

“I don’t even know what damn doppelganger is,” Damon countered.

“But you are watching a child yes? You have been spotted visiting Mystic Falls,” Mikael pointed out that he wasn’t falling for it. “Perhaps you weren’t told what she was, but you will tell me all you know of her regardless.”

“The only child we have anything to do with is a witch we consider a niece and we’ll die before we help anyone get their filthy hands on her,” Enzo snapped.

Mikael snapped as well, blurring to Enzo and biting into his neck, taking a little snack for their defiance. “Do not take me for a fool!” he said dangerously.

“Well you’re doing a real good impression of one,” Damon struggled more against the vervain soaked ropes.

“I will give you some time to rethink your cooperation before we resort to more…distasteful methods of persuasion,” Mikael said in a clipped tone, spinning on his heel to leave before he lost his temper and the information he wanted.

Once they were alone, Enzo turned to Damon. “Did you have a chance to break your crystal?”

“No. I didn’t. And with these ropes…” Damon sighed. It was something they’d come up with Sheila a long time ago when Damon had been kidnapped by a group of magical natives on a dig and it had taken days to find him. They each had a crystal attached to their ‘disguise’ pendants. Breaking the crystal would notify someone that something was wrong. He, Enzo, Sheila, and Abby all had one.

“Let’s see if we can get closer. One of us might be able to use our teeth to break the cord,” Enzo suggested. It ended up involving hooking their legs together and pulling, not to mention more than a little stretching and even Damon dislocating his shoulders to reach Enzo’s neck with his teeth, but he managed to break the cord holding the pendant and once it fell to the floor it was a simple matter of one of them stomping on it. And then kicking it into a dark corner in hopes that it wouldn’t be found. Who knew what this guy might do if he figured out they had help on the way.

They knew it wouldn’t be in time to prevent what was coming though and watching each other be tortured for information that they didn’t even have was probably the worst moment of their entire lives. Even in the Augustines they didn’t have to /see/ it, and they were so much closer now than they’d been back then. Plus the fact that they kept being told they could stop it if they just told Mikael what he wanted to know. The fact that they didn’t /know/ what he wanted to know was inconsequential. It still made it worse. They did end up getting more information from him during the process though. Such as the fact that Damon’s sire had been a doppelganger as proof that he was involved. And that the little Gilbert girl was another.

Damon and Enzo were also able to use his questions to read between the lines and figure out that he was trying to figure out how close this Niklaus he mentioned was. He wanted to know whether using the toddler to set a trap would be more advantageous than killing her. They still had more questions than answers, but getting out of this was their first priority. This guy knew what he was doing though. He didn’t leave them any sort of loophole to exploit. It was a good thing they had other help coming, and it seemed like forever before they finally came. It was Damon’s turn under torture when the door burst in due to a magical explosion revealing Sheila and Abby. Sheila was steady throwing spells at the monster torturing Damon, in an attempt to keep him out of the way while Abby first threw a cutting spell at the ropes securing them to the ceiling.

Damon and Enzo slumped weakly to the floor, having lost most of their blood supply over the course of the day and the vervain wasn’t helping. They weren’t about to lay down on the job while their family was in a danger though, so they were quick to finish untying their hands to join the fight and just in time since Mikael and recovered from the initial surprise and they were losing the advantage. It was a hard fight, even four on one, and they were getting their asses kicked. He was stronger and faster than they could have even imagined, and there wasn’t even a speck of wood in this entire room that they could use against him aside from the stake inside his jacket.

Abby noticed that he was dodging all their spells and focusing most of his close range fighting on Damon and Enzo, so she tried a hail mary. To sneak up on him, snatch the stake she could see from his coat, and throw it to her uncles so they could hopefully get the upper hand. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work that way. Not completely anyway. No sooner than her hand wrapped around the stake, the monster spun around slapping her away hard enough to snap her neck even before she hit the wall and caved in her skull. The stake did fall though, and rolled to a stop at Damon’s feet about the same time that Sheila cried out in horrified denial, a large burst of uncontrolled magic ripping through the room unable to be dodged, but only affecting her daughter’s murderer, flinging him across the room as well. Enzo took that opportunity to pounce and try to subdue Mikael. Which would never last for long, but it lasted long enough for Damon to grab the ornate almost white stake and blur over to put it in his chest.

When, rather than just shrivel up like most vampires, Mikael opened his mouth and screamed as a jet of flame erupted from his heart, Enzo dropped him and jumped back, pulling Damon with him. Mikael was soon no more as his entire body burst into flames, and stake and all were ashes a moment later. They then turned their attention to Sheila who had fallen to her knees next to her daughter the moment Mikael had fallen. “Sheila, I’m so sorry,” Damon said around the lump in his own throat as he dropped a hand on her shoulder.

“Me too, luv,” Enzo said sadly, a few tears leaking from his eyes. They could figure out what the hell that was and what all he’d been talking about later. Right now they needed to take a beat and mourn Abby’s death. Enzo and Damon both kept their eyes and ears open for any other threats or even just anyone who might come investigating strange noises, but otherwise they would stay there until Sheila was ready to move and figure out what to do from here.

Chapter Text

It was a while before Sheila managed to get up off the floor and was quickly wrapped in a group hug by Damon and Enzo. “What do you want to do, luv?” Enzo asked gently.

“She’ll have to disappear,” Sheila said miserably. “There’s no way we can explain this without investigations going too deep.” Keeping the secret was paramount. It wasn’t uncommon for witches to cover up their deaths. “Rudy and Bonnie will be told the truth, of course, but as far as anyone else is concerned, she ran off.”

“But we’ll give her a memorial for us though. Including Rudy and Bonnie,” Damon said more than asked.

“We will,” Sheila sniffled, pulling out of their arms. “She would be as glad as I am that you’re both alright though,” she wanted to say before either of them started blaming themselves.

“Hang on,” Enzo caught something out of the corner of his eye and turned to face the body. “Look.”

“Her body is healing,” Damon furrowed his brow. “But that means…”

Enzo reached down and lifted the raven necklace that Damon had given her for her thirteenth birthday, twisting the head off to reveal the compartment that she was supposed to keep a healing potion in. He gave it a good sniff. “Vampire blood. Mine if I’m not mistaken. And it’s empty.”

“Oh you beautiful little fool,” Sheila sighed fondly relieved as she sat back down and ran a hand through her daughter’s hair. She would never have wanted her baby to give up her magic for vampirism, but when facing the idea of her being dead otherwise, she couldn’t bring herself to complain. “How did she get it?” she still had to ask.

“She’s been getting little bits of blood from both of us every so often for a couple years now. Said she was experimenting with the vampire magic, but didn’t say how,” Damon shrugged.

“You gave your blood freely to a witch without even knowing why?” Sheila asked with wide eyes, not sure how she felt about that.

“She’s family. If we can’t trust her, who can we trust,” Enzo was the one to answer with a shrug. She’d promised not to do anything that could hurt them and that was enough for them.

“You’re both fools too,” Sheila laughed, getting up to grab them both in hugs and kiss their cheeks.

They took the comment in the manner it was meant and just chuckled as they hugged her back. “We need to take her away somewhere to complete the transition and get her steady,” Damon reminded her that she wouldn’t be able to go home just yet. “You’ll take care of letting her husband know?”

“I will, yes,” Sheila nodded. “Tell her I love her when she wakes up.”

“We will, luv,” Enzo promised. “We’ll take good care of her.”

“I know you will.” Even if Rudy would throw a fit. Even without Abby becoming a vampire, her going off with Damon and Enzo would be an issue. He had rather irrational jealousy issues. Particularly since he found out that Sheila joined them as a third in their bed regularly, meaning that they weren’t fully gay. He would never understand that they’d seen Abby grow up and thought of her like a niece so could never see her that way. There was nothing for it under the circumstances though. She would never trust any other vampires to teach her. “Why don’t you all stay at my house for the duration. It’s far more secluded than your apartment while still being close to people to learn to feed from.”

“We’d still need to come either here or into the city to eat given the town council, but it would be much better as a home base,” Damon nodded his agreement. “If you’re sure you won’t mind?”

“Not at all. I’ll stay with Rudy and Bonnie until she’s safe. He’ll need help coming to terms with all this anyway,” Sheila assured them as Damon picked up the body gently to take her home.

When Abby woke up, she explained that she had a habit of always keeping vampire blood in her necklace, calling it the best healing potion possible, so she did do as they suggested. She could take it if she was seriously injured, which had happened once when a misfired blasting spell caused a bit of a rock slide at the quarry. Or she could take it when she was going into certain danger, of which this was her second time doing so. She knew her mother wouldn’t approve, nor would she ever accept it for herself, but Abby could live with being a vampire. She would rather have magic, but if it came to that or death, she’d take vampirism. At least long enough to see her baby grow up. Damon and Enzo just reminded Sheila of her rebellious friendship with two vampires that her mother wouldn’t have approved of at the same age, finding it rather amusing.

What wasn’t so amusing though was the fact that Rudy had left. He’d been struggling with the idea of his daughter being a witch already now that she was coming into accidental magic. Now with his wife turning into a vampire, he couldn’t take it. By the time Sheila woke up the morning after she told him, he was already gone along with all his stuff and just a note left behind not to try and find him. Like that was going to happen. Enzo went after him, leaving Damon with Abby for a day, long enough to catch up to him and compel him to forget anything supernatural and gave him a humanized story of why he was abandoning his family. One that ensured he wouldn’t want to come back. Sheila didn’t mind ending up with care of Bonnie until Abby was ready to come home though. Even if it meant that all three teachers were out of work for a week. They just called it the flu and they’d gotten each other sick since everyone knew they were close.

Abby missed her magic more than she thought she would, but every time her baby hugged her, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it for a moment. At least she could still research, though it meant sharing more of her projects with her mother who would have to do any actual casting. Including the spell she’d been working with the vampire blood for. Trying to modify the ancient spirit animal magic that they’d found bits and pieces of to work for vampires as well as witches. It would be another year before they got enough of the original magic figured out for witches to shapeshift into their spirit animal and a few more years until they figured it out for vampires.

While Bonnie was little, Abby and Sheila alternated joining Damon and Enzo on their adventures every summer, and sometimes over winter break. Once Bonnie was ten though, they started taking her along. She wasn’t having any accidental magic anymore and knew better than to go playing with things she shouldn’t. Much like Abby grew up spending at least a month every summer around the world, so did Bonnie and she loved it just as much. As she did her uncles Damon and Enzo. So much so that she insisted on being there when they got married in Massachusetts as soon as it was legal. Even though it was basically getting eloped at the courthouse. They didn’t object, of course, and were happy to have her there. As well as Sheila and Abby who were the official witnesses. Neither of them were changing their names though. They had too many professional achievements under their current names, not to mention the mounds of red tape to change names on doctorates.

While they had talked, many times, about selling their apartment at the school and getting a nicer house on the outskirts, they again decided against it. They didn’t plan to be there /that/ much longer anyway and despite being only one bedroom, it wasn’t exactly a small apartment besides that. The next time they moved to another school, likely a more prestigious university, they could buy a nicer house. Damon didn’t want to own anything nice that close to Mystic Falls now that he was done with the Salvatores. He still owned the boarding house there after all, so having to buy something else for himself would just be adding insult to injury.

They didn’t bother registering their marriage with their jobs. It wouldn’t be honored anyway since same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in Virginia, and wouldn’t be for a long time to come. Thus, there were no benefits to registering it. At least their relationship was more accepted in general by then, and they didn’t hesitate to tell people they were married or even show off their wedding rings. Sheila stayed a regular third in their beds, but never in their relationship. She wasn’t interested in dating or relationships or any of that drama, but she did like the sex, so the arrangement they had worked perfectly for them.

Chapter Text

The group was getting ready to take their summer trip in oh nine, this time to Argentina, when there was a kink in their plans. A kink in the form of the Gilbert family car launching off Wickery Bridge just before the school year let out. Elena miraculously survived somehow, and Jeremy wasn’t with them, but both of their parents died. The supernaturals did a little investigating, making sure that it was a simple human wreck. Elena’s status as a doppelganger meant they wanted to be sure before leaving the town unprotected. They were relatively certain that no one else knew about that fact though. Since Elena had only been three when they found out, Sheila, with Abby’s help in the research part, was able to make a few changes to her appearance. Miniscule changes that couldn’t be noticed at the time, as she grew up, became bigger changes. They had even put off the research on getting Abby a new daylight ring while they did that, which meant she was a slave to the sun for more than a year before they could get that spell figured out.

While Elena still did and always would resemble Katherine to some degree, she was nowhere near an exact copy. The fact that Mikael somehow knew even before her looks developed, and they had no idea how, meant they weren’t a hundred percent sure though. When it did turn out to be just a simple human accident, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Not just because it meant they didn’t need to bail on the research trip, but because it meant that they didn’t need to be bracing for a storm when whoever else was out there looking for doppelgangers came sniffing around. It didn’t mean that all of them wanted to go though, as they learned two days before they were due to leave when Bonnie went to her mother. “I don’t want to go to Argentina,” she told her. “Elena is in such a bad place right now, and I want to be here for her.”

Abby sighed heavily as she rearranged plans in her mind. “I can understand that, and you’re a good friend for feeling that way. We won’t go, then.”

“No, Mom. You should go. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this trip. I’m seventeen now. It won’t be a big deal for me to stay here by myself,” Bonnie argued.

“Yes, you are seventeen,” Abby said seriously. “And if we were just talking about a night or two when we would be able to be contacted and could get back quickly if something happened, I would probably allow it. But we’re going to be on a whole other continent for an entire month where contact is spotty at best, even with the satellite phone due to the mountains. You staying here alone isn’t an option.”

“Okay, what about staying with Elena then? Or Caroline?” Bonnie pitched.

“Elena, no. While she doesn’t need to be alone right now, and needs the support of her friends, you don’t need to be /that/ close while she’s grieving. Not to mention her aunt is already trying to cope with suddenly taking care of two teenagers. Caroline though…I suppose if her mother is alright with it…”

“Thank you, Mom. I promise it’ll be okay. I’ll go call her now,” Bonnie hugged her mom before starting to leave the room.

“Oh no you don’t,” Abby chuckled, grabbing her arm. “/I/ will call the sheriff and discuss the idea.” She wasn’t going to have the girls putting her on the spot. Bonnie pouted a bit, but sat down while her mom pulled out her cell phone. “Good evening, sheriff. This is Abby Bennett.”

“Abby. Hi. How are you?” Liz asked companionably.

“I’m good, thank you. I did wonder if I might ask for a favor though,” she got right to the point.

“What sort of favor?” Liz asked curiously.

“As you know, we’re scheduled for a research trip to Argentina in a few days, but given what’s happened, Bonnie doesn’t want to go, but I can’t leave her here alone for a month,” Abby started the explanation.

“Certainly not,” Liz was almost scandalized at the very idea. “You’re asking if she can stay with me?”

“It was just a thought. Now, my dropping off the team wouldn’t cause any undue hardships, so don’t feel like you have to say yes. The rest of the team can still go, which means the grant won’t be in jeopardy and my job won’t be affected,” Abby assured her.

Liz took a moment to think before asking, “You’ll be gone for a month, right? Will you be able to be contacted?”

“Emergency contact, probably not too much. We’ll have a satellite uplink, and a sat phone, which I’ll make sure you have the number for, as well as an email address that we’ll be watching as much as possible. Reception will likely be spotty due to the caves, mountains, and tree cover though,” Abby said regretfully.

“When do you need an answer by?” Liz asked.

“Tomorrow preferably. I’m sorry for the short notice,” Abby said apologetically.

“No, it’s okay. I understand how these things happen,” Liz assured her. “I’ll get back to you by lunchtime tomorrow.” That wasn’t the kind of answer she could give without any thought. If Abby /had/ to go, then it might be a different story, but since staying was a valid option, she would have to think about it. She did eventually decide to do it though after talking to Caroline. She could handle any emergency situations herself, though did ask for a notarized letter from Abby saying such, just in case something should come up.

It was still a hard goodbye leaving Bonnie there. For all four of the adults going. Just because they’d confirmed that it was a simple human accident that killed the adult Gilberts didn’t mean there wasn’t some question. And while Bonnie had been trained in magic her whole life, she was still so young if the shit hit the fan while they were gone. Bonnie reminded them that they couldn’t just stick around Mystic Falls forever, and it wasn’t like the town was protected while they were all gone either.

“I don’t care about the town, Bon-bon,” Damon was the only one tactless enough to say. And the one it would be most understood given his history there. “I only care about you.”

“I know, Uncle Damon,” Bonnie rolled her eyes. “But I /do/ care about the town. And especially about Elena right now.”

“It’ll be alright, love,” Enzo put a hand on Damon’s arm. “There’s no indication of anything going down, and I’m sure Bonnie won’t hesitate to let us know at the slightest sign, right?”

“Yeah. Of course. The second anything looks weird, I’ll call or email so someone should have time to get back. And if something serious actually happens, I’ll break my crystal so you know right away,” Bonnie agreed quickly, seeing that it was the only way to get them to go.

“Then we’ll hold you to your word, child,” Sheila pulled her into a hug. “Be safe and we’ll be home in a month.”

“I will, Grams,” Bonnie said gratefully, and then hugged the rest of them before seeing them off. She was a little sad to be missing the trip too, but she’d been to Argentina before. Not that same area and the falls looked amazing in the pictures, but Elena was more important right now. She needed to be here for her best friend.

The month passed uneventfully in Mystic Falls, and the sheriff thankfully allowed her to spend some time at her house even though no one was there. At her mother’s request, clearly. That meant she had the chance to study her magic when she could get away from Caroline to do so. She was pretty good at coming up with excuses though, and when all else failed, a simple spell to distract her worked well enough. They didn’t make much progress pulling Elena out of her shell, but they did, hopefully, help Jeremy.

Bonnie’s vigilance allowed her to notice Vicki Donovan, a grown woman, coming out of the fourteen year old’s bedroom, straightening her clothes, and smelling like pot, so she reported it to the sheriff which got that predator off the streets. Hopefully in time to help Jeremy before he got too deep which seemed to be going well enough. Not that he was any better off than his sister given the loss they were suffering, but at least he wasn’t being dragged down worse anymore. Her vigilance did not, however, notice the vampire skulking around. He was far too good at remaining unseen.

Chapter Text

As soon as the founder’s ball was announced, and Bonnie got an invitation via her friendship with Elena and Caroline, Damon talked her into taking him as her plus one. Which got a little sticky when he got a phone call from Bonnie the night after school started. Damon was laying on the couch with his head in his husband’s lap, reading a book, when his phone rang. He grabbed it from the table and took a look before answering, “Sup Bon?”

“I know you said that the Salvatores here wanted nothing to do with you because you were a vampire and all, but…I thought you should know…there’s another Salvatore vampire here,” Bonnie told him.

“Stefan,” Damon groaned.

“Yeah. That’s him. Who is he?” Bonnie asked curiously. Damon didn’t talk about his so-called family, so she only knew the one fact that would keep her from asking more.

“My brother. And the reason the rest of the family hates me,” Damon said bitterly. “What the hell is he doing back here so soon? He’s not supposed to be back for at least another fifteen years.”

“Well he seems to have a thing for Elena, but that’s all I know really,” Bonnie answered. “Should I try to keep him away from her?”

“I’m not going to try and interfere in his life,” Damon shook his head. Even if not for the deal, Stefan could do whatever he wanted. Now if he was going for Bonnie, that might be a different story, but he didn’t care that much about Elena.

“But he’s a bad guy?” Bonnie wanted more information.

“He’s a judgmental self-righteous idiot who thinks his way to live is the only right way and that I’m an evil monster for not letting him control me. But he won’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Damon answered.

“Maybe I could just try to tell him the truth about you. Get him to see,” Bonnie suggested.

“The more he knows about my life, the more trouble he can cause me in an effort to get me far away from Mystic Falls. I don’t want him to know anything until or unless he pulls his head out of his ass,” Damon said firmly.

“But it’s not like you’re hard to find,” Bonnie said confusedly. “Just a google search of your name shows that you teach at Pontier College right near here.”

“And if he finds that, then alright, but the thing about Stefan is that he never considers the possibility that he might be wrong. He’s not likely to go looking because he’s so sure he knows better. He believes I live my life on the fringes of society, in the shadows preying on people like any normal monster and that anything that doesn’t live up to that image is just a ploy or a role I’m playing. Even just a google search wouldn’t dawn on him to try,” Damon explained.

“Do you want me to come up with something to tell Caroline and Elena to keep them from telling him anything too?” Bonnie asked, liking Stefan less and less the more Damon said.

“If you would, yes. If you can’t, we’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it,” Damon sighed. He hadn’t even gotten as far as considering the fact that Caroline and Elena knew him too, even just in passing, and would likely mention what they knew.

“Okay, well they know that you’re not on speaking terms with the local Salvatores already since they asked about that years ago, so I should be able to pull it off as long as they haven’t said anything yet,” Bonnie promised to try.

“That would be appreciated,” Damon said gratefully. “But it looks like I’m not coming to the comet festival in Mystic Falls tonight though.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Bonnie said sadly. “I’ll let Mom and Grams know. Are you still coming to the ball?”

“Yeah, I need to get into the Lockwood house and the ball is the best opportunity. But I can keep my public appearances in town to a minimum at least,” Damon told her.

“What if he ends up as Elena’s date to the ball?” Bonnie asked worriedly, not questioning why he needed into the Lockwood house. She figured it had something to do with the tomb that they were going to be opening, but she didn’t have a lot of details on how that was going to work. It wasn’t like she was going to be taken along for it after all.

“Then I’ll handle it,” Damon shrugged. He could only go so far to avoid his brother. As long as he was able to get the amulet, that was all that mattered. “But if it does come to a fight, you have to promise me that you’ll stay out of it.”

“But what if…”

“He’s on animal blood. He can’t hurt me,” Damon promised her. “But he /can/ hurt you if you try to defend me.”

“Okay. I’ll stay out of it,” Bonnie agreed reluctantly.

“Good. Thank you,” Damon said gratefully. “I’ll talk to you later, Bon.”

The whole time Damon was on the phone, Enzo just kept running his hands through his hair. “You alright, darling?” he asked sympathetically once Damon hung up.

“I’ll have to be, won’t I,” Damon huffed.

“Not with me, you don’t,” Enzo said softly, leaning down for a kiss.

“Honestly, I don’t even know right now,” he gave the real answer. “Avoiding him isn’t going to be easy, but if he finds out about the tomb, he’s going to flip. If not for the tomb, we could just avoid Mystic Falls completely until he moves on, but then if he finds out that Abby is a vampire, who knows what he would do to her and…I just don’t know.”

“And we can’t even take the tying him to a chair and forcing him to open his eyes because if if backfires, then all those poor sods could end up suffering for eternity. Maybe we could give it a try after the tomb though?” Enzo suggested.

“After Bonnie graduates, if he’s still an issue, we can think about it. But if I’m gonna be run out of the area, the Bennetts are going to have the option of coming with,” Damon said bitterly. They were his family far more than the Salvatores anymore.

“Okay. That’s the plan then,” Enzo agreed. “We’ll just play it by ear and see what happens.”

“Yeah. We will,” Damon sighed. “But for now, let’s forget about Stefan. Why don’t we go out and hit a club or something?”

“That sounds perfect, love,” Enzo agreed. What Damon needed more than anything else right now was to blow off some steam.

Bonnie did manage to get across that Damon didn’t want Stefan to know anything about his life to both Caroline and Elena. She explained that it was Stefan who convinced the rest of their family to disown Damon. While they both agreed, it did nothing to keep Elena away from Stefan, and she even kissed him for the first time that night, so Bonnie tried to step up her game of keeping Elena away from him. Damon might not be willing to interfere in Stefan’s life, but she didn’t want to see her best friend end up with someone so delusional and controlling. That just ended up with her being invited to some dinner to get to know Stefan better which was painful to endure. If she didn’t know any better she would think there was some kind of magnetic pull driving the two of them together and she had no idea how to fight it, so she finally gave up. She would have to let Elena make her own mistakes there and just pick up the pieces afterwards. It didn’t mean she had to like Stefan though, as she made perfectly clear.

When it turned out that Stefan was going to the ball with Elena, Bonnie warned Damon who just played it on the phone like he didn’t care, but once the call ended, he blew up in frustration. Enzo was always excellent at calming Damon down though, and by the time they went to bed, they had a decent plan for how to handle it. Much as part of Enzo wanted Damon to have backup on site, given how Stefan attacked him the last time they saw each other, he knew that the more backup Damon had, the more likely it would be for Stefan to escalate things. Bonnie would be able to call in the cavalry if they were needed and Enzo would even be spending the evening with Sheila and Abby so they were all together if necessary. Which was another reason that Bonnie was asked to stay out of it if there was a fight. So she would be free to raise the alarm. The obvious exception would be if Damon was in danger of death. They even had backup daylight enchantments now just in case, since they’d figured that spell out once Abby turned. He and Damon each had earrings with it in case their rings were lost or stolen.

Chapter Text

When the night of the ball rolled around, Damon and Enzo rode together as far as the Bennett house where Damon dropped Enzo off and picked up Bonnie. In addition to his stylish suit, Damon was also wearing his glasses for a number of reasons. First of all was the fact that they’d been enchanted to, among other things, detect magic. And since vervain was a magical herb, he would be able to see who was on vervain as they gave off a dull glow, and who was wearing vervain as the glow would be centered around where they were wearing it. His other reason was to hopefully give Stefan a clue that there were things he didn’t know about Damon. He would obviously be finding out about his friendship with the Bennett witches. That much was unavoidable. But if he could keep his brother off balance it could only be helpful.

Just in case a scene started early, Damon went for the amulet as soon as he got there, returning to Bonnie near the historical display just a minute after he left, amulet secure in his pocket. Bonnie noticed something as he approached that she pointed out to him immediately. “That pocket-watch…it spun to point at you as you moved,” she whispered.

“Well crap,” Damon huffed. “That’s the old Gilbert pocket-watch. Enchanted to point to vampires.” He used his vampire speed to pull a slight of hand to get that into his other pocket.

“It’s too noticeable there. Hand it here. I’ll put it in my purse,” Bonnie told him. It was thick enough to be obvious. Once Damon passed it over, she told him, “My turn for a bathroom trip.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Damon chuckled, figuring she was going to do something to hide it or send it elsewhere so she didn’t get caught with it. While he was waiting for her, he noticed his brother and Elena come in and gave a mental sigh when they noticed him.

Elena was the first to speak as she said, “Doctor Salvatore. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Doctor?!” Stefan choked on the word.

Damon just ignored him as he addressed Elena. “It’s nice to see you again, Elena. Bonnie was kind enough to invite me as her plus one.”

“Yeah, I know how much Uncle Damon loves these sorts of events and since his own family is intent on unjustly persecuting him, I wanted to give him the chance to enjoy it,” Bonnie said with a hard look at Stefan.

“Bon,” Damon said warningly.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Be nice,” she huffed.

“We should go find our table,” Damon offered his arm to Bonnie.

“Why don’t we let the girls do that and we can catch up,” Stefan said tightly.

Bonnie looked to Damon who nodded at her before she and Elena walked in, Elena looking back worriedly at the two brothers. “I’m trying to avoid you and stay out of your life as per our deal, Stefan,” Damon pointed out.

“Playing your stupid games with my girlfriend and crashing the ball we’re attending is not staying out of my life, Damon,” Stefan said dangerously.

“Everything in the world isn’t about you,” Damon scoffed. “I’ve known Elena most of her life. And I’ve been planning to attend this ball with Bonnie for months. Long before you even came to town. I am allowed to have a life too, you know. If anyone’s interfering, it’s you.”

“Your ‘life’ is supposed to be far away from here,” Stefan countered.

“Why should it be? I have just as much right to be here as you do. And I have family here too,” Damon countered.

“Yeah, playing ‘uncle’ to a witch. Like anyone’s supposed to believe that it’s not for your own personal gain so you can keep a witch in your pocket,” Stefan scoffed. “And don’t think I buy your whole ‘doctor’ routine or your fake glasses. Whatever game you’re trying to play here, I won’t let you get away with it.”

“You’ll believe what you want, Stefan. You always do. But I, for one, plan to enjoy my evening. I suggest you do the same and pretend I don’t exist just like I plan to do for you,” Damon said before walking off to join Bonnie, leaving Stefan to catch up.

It wasn’t long before Caroline joined them at the table as well, and greeted Damon the same way Elena had, both girls assuming that the fact that he was a doctor wasn’t one of those things he didn’t want his brother to know. Damon didn’t know either of the girls well, only having seen them in passing when they happened to come in while he was visiting the Bennetts. They did, at least, know better than to ask about his husband. The meal portion of the evening was rather stilted, but once the dance floor opened up, Damon was quick to ask Bonnie for a dance, followed by Caroline who was also dateless. Once Damon dropped Bonnie back at the table, he overheard the conversation between her and Stefan.

“You really don’t see a problem with him grooming you your entire life and now ‘dating’ you? Even as you call him ‘uncle’?” Stefan asked her incredulously.

“That is kinda creepy,” Elena had to admit.

“Oh my god, ew! No, we are not dating. Not in any way shape or form. Not now, not ever,” Bonnie said horrified at the very thought. “I already told you why I brought him, so quit trying to twist things around to manipulate us.”

“He’s the one twisting things, Bonnie. You have to see that. He’s always been a master manipulator,” Stefan argued.

“No. He’s not. If he was, don’t you think my mother would have noticed? Or my grandmother?” Bonnie pointed out, leaving off all the other people that would have noticed and letting him think that it was just the Bennetts he was friendly with here.

“He’s just that good at it, Bonnie. I don’t want to see you end up being used by him. Is that so wrong?” Stefan asked.

“It is when you think you have a right to tell other people who to associate with,” Bonnie snapped. “You’re sitting here expecting us to believe that you’re right and everyone else is wrong because you’re the only one smart enough to see the truth. Do you realize how delusional that is?”

“Why don’t you just drop the subject, now,” Damon said seriously as he brought Caroline back to the table. He turned to Stefan and said, “What happened to pretending I don’t exist?” He then turned to Bonnie and said, “And I explained how he’s never going to believe anything but what he wants to believe so you’re just beating a dead horse. Now both of you behave.” He last turned to Elena and held out a hand. “Would you like a dance too?”

“Sure,” Elena agreed with a sheepish smile as she reached for his hand.

Stefan grabbed her wrist before she reached him though and pulled it back. “No, you don’t need to be dancing with him,” he snapped.

Elena turned and told him, “You don’t get to tell me who to associate with either,” before he tried to yank her arm away. Stefan didn’t let go though. “Let me /go/, Stefan!” Before Damon could intervene, Stefan doubled over holding his head in pain, letting Elena go in the process. She huffed and stepped away from him. “If you’re not going to dance with me, then you don’t get to complain if I accept other offers,” she said before taking Damon’s hand.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have asked you to dance,” Damon said regretfully. “I just didn’t want you to feel left out when I danced with both your friends and he wasn’t dancing with you. I didn’t realize he would go that far to prevent it. He didn’t hurt you did he?” Damon lifted her hand to look at her wrist. At most he’d expected Stefan to just be motivated to dance with her himself to keep him from having another opportunity.

“No, it’s okay. He didn’t hurt me,” she told him. “Thank you though. For checking and for not wanting me to feel left out.”

“Are you okay?” Caroline asked Stefan worriedly as Elena and Damon left the table.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” he said shortly with a glare at Bonnie who just smirked back at him. He knew he’d gone a bit too far grabbing her like that, but the idea of Damon already having so much influence over Elena, and especially her friends, scared the crap out of him. That they thought he was a doctor was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, but it gave him an air of respectability and especially with a witch on his side, Stefan didn’t know how to fight that. Once the song was over and Damon returned her, he was quick to apologize though and ask her to dance himself. It was the only thing he could think to do to keep her away from him. Even if it did mean abandoning her friends to him.

Chapter Text

Damon took Bonnie around one more time before moving on to others. It didn’t take long before gossip to get around and he found himself approached by the mayor’s wife who had a look on her face like she was looking for something juicy. “Doctor Salvatore, yes?” she asked curiously, having heard him referred to as that.

“Doctor of Anthropology, not a medical doctor,” Damon clarified as he took her offered hand. “Might I have a dance?”

“I’d be delighted,” she nodded her acceptance and was led to the dance floor. Even if he wasn’t the ‘right’ Salvatore, he was still a doctor. “Any relation to Zach Salvatore and the founding family?” she asked curiously.

“Ah, that’s a rather complicated story,” Damon said with an air of regret. “There was a falling out quite a while ago involving an illegitimate child and all. Not a tale fit for mixed company.” He knew the impression he was giving and didn’t care. Especially since, once it did get back to Zach, he would know that /he/ was the one descended from the illegitimate child. “Suffice to say, that they prefer to pretend I don’t exist, and I choose to let them.”

“I see,” she said, barely hiding the glint in her eye. “And how is it you find yourself here tonight?”

“My side of the family has always been close with the Bennett family. When Bonnie was invited, and didn’t have anyone else to bring, she thought I might enjoy the chance to attend,” Damon told her.

“To see where you came from and learn more about the family that was denied to you,” Carol said sagely.

“Something like that, yeah,” Damon said amusedly. “I’ve always found the history of small towns fascinating though. An occupational hazard and all. That I have connections to this one only makes it more so.”

“I can imagine,” Carol chuckled. “Well I’d be happy to speak with you about town history anytime,” she said suggestively.

“Perhaps I’ll take you up on that sometime,” Damon said noncommittally. If he could let on here that he was married and could bring her to bed as a third, he might consider it, but as it stood, he wasn’t about to go there.

Over the course of the evening, he made his way through most of the women at the event, aside from Gail, and went back to the teens a few times, but only Bonnie and Caroline. He left Elena alone after the first incident, and knew she would understand why now. He made note of everyone that was drinking vervain, which was a good half of the council, and everyone that was wearing vervain and where. That included the other half of the council and Elena who had it in a necklace he recognized from Stefan. He just ignored the glares from Stefan, Zach, and Gail, the latter two accompanied by fear, and had fun.

Stefan kept half an ear on Damon the whole evening and got more and more angry as he listened to him playing up his ridiculous story and maligning their family in the process. He did what damage control he did with his own story about Damon being a pathological liar and manipulator and that was why the family didn’t associate with him. Once they had a chance to look up Damon’s claims and come up blank, they would see the truth. That didn’t make him any less pissed though, so as soon as he saw Damon head outside alone, he followed right after.

Damon heard Stefan’s story just as much as Stefan heard his, and wasn’t particularly worried about it. Anyone who didn’t know what to believe could easily look him up. Even if they did believe Stefan over him, it was no skin off his nose. He wanted nothing to do with these people and was only attached to this town because of the Bennetts. They were all hateful genocidal pricks. The leadership and council anyway. He had nothing personally against the average citizen, but had no reason to really care that much about them either. He did find himself needing some air though after a particularly cutting remark by Zach Salvatore, so he just went for a quick walk around the grounds. He heard Stefan coming before he even got close and thus was expecting the punch that laid him out. That was his one and only free shot though, and Damon was up fighting.

Stefan, on animal blood, wasn’t really a match for his brother in the grand scheme of things, but that didn’t mean it was a rout either. He could at least hold his own and get a few good hits in, and boy did they make him feel better every time he got one. They grappled around the grass for quite a while before Damon got an opening to break Stefan’s neck. Served the little prick right. Damon was almost tempted to steal his daylight ring and find a shed to lock him in, but he refrained. He couldn’t let him be found on the grounds with a broken neck either though, so he picked him up and carried him into the woods to stay out of sight until he woke up before heading back to the party. Just for a minute though.

Damon found Bonnie quickly and headed over. “I need to get out of here. Do you want me to take you home or can you get a ride with someone else?”

“I’m good to leave. It’s almost over anyway,” Bonnie told him with a frown, noticing that his clothes were a mess and even ripped in places. Once of his pockets was even ripped open, making her doubly glad that she’d taken that pocket-watch and magically transported it home.

“Where’s Stefan?” Elena asked worriedly, having seen him go out after Damon.

“He’ll be back soon I’m sure. I didn’t hurt him any worse than he did me. He’s just walking off his temper,” Damon said tightly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bonnie told Caroline and Elena before heading out with Damon, waiting until they were in the car before she asked, “You broke his neck didn’t you?”

“I did. He’ll wake up in the woods with a killer headache, but he’ll be fine,” Damon said bitterly.

“Good. He deserved a lot worse with what he was saying about you. I don’t blame you for going after him,” Bonnie said smugly.

“Actually, he came after me if we want to get technical. I meant it about just trying to have a nice evening,” Damon said wryly.

“Oh. Well. I don’t blame you for kicking his ass then,” Bonnie chuckled, not at all phased by his ‘crazy’ driving. It was nothing she wasn’t used to. Her mother was the same way with the vampire reflexes.

Once they got back to the Bennett house, they walked into a heated debate about the proper way to brew tea while they drank said beverage. It was Sheila vs Enzo with Abby just trying not to laugh. It was a playful debate they got into regularly with the British Enzo being rather territorial on the subject and Sheila, as a witch, having her own ideas of herbal teas. Just hearing that was enough to put a smile back on Damon’s face. Enzo was always good at that. No matter how much his brother tried to destroy, he could never take this much away from him. He interrupted Enzo’s argument over the proper temperature of the water by occupying his mouth with something other than words.

“How was the ball?” Abby asked, trying to get a new subject in before the old one started back up.

“Well enough until the fight at the end,” Damon said wryly.

“I do hope he at least got you somewhere alone before he attacked you?” Sheila asked worriedly. With how unreliable compulsion was given the amount of vervain flowing at founder functions, it was a valid concern.

“Naturally. And I left him in the woods to sleep off his broken neck. He may be an idiot, but he’s not /that/ stupid,” Damon said amusedly. About that time Bonnie’s phone rang, and when she checked that it was Elena, she headed up to her room to talk in private.

“You got what you went for at least though, right?” Enzo asked.

“Yep. Got it right…” Damon trailed off as he found his ripped pocket. “Damnit!”

“It’s fine, love. We’ll just head back and search the area. It can’t have gotten far,” Enzo assured him.

“It’s going to be a mad house trying to get back in there now. Unless you’re gonna run through the woods, which I would suggest given the teenage propensity to sneak that direction from these events, you might want to give it an hour for everyone to clear out,” Sheila suggested.

“Yeah. We might as well,” Damon sighed. Even if someone did find it and pick it up, they wouldn’t just throw it away and he had a good enough rapport with Carol Lockwood who they would turn it in to, that he’d be able to get it back. Just claim it was supposed to be a present for Bonnie that fell out of his pocket or something.

Chapter Text

Getting the amulet wouldn’t go as easily as they hoped. They waited an hour for everyone to clear about before heading back, and Damon headed to the door first. When Carol was the one to answer, he asked if anyone had turned it in to her, but no one had, so he let her know they would be searching the yard where Stefan attacked him to see if it had fallen out of his pocket there. She had no problem with that but was glad she let him know so she didn’t think anything untoward about a group of people milling around her lawn with flashlights. They checked everywhere, even extending the search into the woods, but couldn’t find it. Given that it was magical, Sheila even did a spell to turn up any magic in the area, but aside from the four of them and what they were wearing, it came up blank, so they headed home.

Their next thought was that Stefan must have picked it up on his way back to the party once he woke up. Damon knew better than to try a confrontation, and he was still able to get into the house since his invitation back in ninety-four, so he waited until a day everyone was out and he and Sheila went to search the place. Him by hand, and her by magic. Neither Enzo nor Abby could get inside, so they had to stay back. It took them almost a week to get an opportunity though given the very different schedules of the four inhabitants. They weren’t going to just trust the magic sensing spells since there were other spells that could mask magic, which was why Damon was searching, starting in Stefan’s room, even as Sheila went through the house doing the spell in every room, even the unused ones and closets. Aside from the vervain farm in the basement, she didn’t have any luck with the spell. But she did go ahead and cast a spell on the vervain farm to make it all magically inert. That could help solve one of their biggest problems. Even the future plants grown from the inert stock would remain inert, and she made sure to get any seeds with it too.

Damon didn’t have any more luck than she did, even searching Sarah’s room in case Stefan had given it to her as a gift. It would go as well with her coloring as it would with Bonnie’s, given how similar they were. He felt like a total creep searching a fifteen year old girl’s room, and even called Sheila in to take care of the underwear drawer that he wasn’t touching with a ten foot pole. Searching the room was one thing, but there were lines he wasn’t going to cross. He didn’t care as much with Gail, since she was an adult and all, But Sheila stepped in to do that part anyway since she was done with her part of the rest of the house by the time Damon made it to the ground floor. They were just finishing up when they heard a car drive up and Sheila used magic to hide them and then close the window behind them on the way out.

Then they had to think of other possible places it might be, which led to multiple trips back to Mystic Falls over the next few weeks to search everyone from the Lockwoods’ landscapers to the houses of other guests at the event. Even the ones that were on vervain were spelled by Sheila to invite whichever vampire was with her inside for the search. With every place that turned up empty, they got more and more frustrated. It couldn’t have disappeared into thin air. Unfortunately, the one place they never thought to look was the one place it was. And the one person they never thought to ask, was the one person that knew.

Unbeknownst to Damon at the time, Emily had placed a spell on the amulet before giving it to him. She never had any intention of letting him open that tomb, and as far as she was concerned, the moment he became a vampire, he was no longer her old friend. She’d been ordered by Katherine to give him the amulet, but nothing in that order said he had to keep it. Her spell would have charged over time and, had he hung onto it, he would have been compelled to give it to one of her family members. That spell, by the time Damon lost the amulet, was completely charged and, had he found it within the first day, he probably could have retrieved it before the spell ensnared the person who picked it up. But by the time he’d gotten around to searching the Forbes house, with a compulsion to Caroline to get him the invite in, she had already given it to Bonnie. And Bonnie was being influenced by the amulet to keep it hidden, but wear it at all times, which would give Emily the power she would need to eventually possess her and get rid of the amulet once and for all.

It wasn’t until the end of November, almost two months later, when they finally got a clue. Enzo was still at home, working on his own grading since it was Damon’s night to search with the routine they started trading off on. Damon was with Abby that night as they had moved on from people’s houses and were looking into businesses when Abby’s phone rang. It was Elena, letting her know that something was really wrong with Bonnie. She told her how they’d been doing a sceance to talk to her ancestor Emily who was trying to contact her through her amulet and then she got really weird and ran out, even casting a spell on Elena to try and stop her. And that she said something about ending it where it began. Damon and Abby knew exactly where that was, and started racing that direction, but they were much farther away than the Gilbert house where she was leaving from.

By the time they got there, Emily was already drawing the pentagram, but they both hesitated to attack. It was still Bonnie’s body. They would at least try talking first. As long as they could get her before the pentagram was complete they would be fine. “Hello, Emily. You look different,” Damon took the lead as the one who knew her before. Letting her know that they knew who she was.

“I won’t let you do it,” Emily said firmly.

“We had a deal,” Damon reminded her.

“Things are different now. I need to protect my family,” Emily said coldly.

“/I/ protected your family,” Damon snapped, hurt that his old friend would betray him this way.

“He did,” Abby made her foray into the conversation. “He’s watched over us for generations.”

“He’s /destroyed/ my family!” Emily snapped. “I never wanted for my family to know such a curse.” Turning one of her line into a vampire was beyond the pale. If ever she doubted this course of action it would be now.

They knew then that Emily would never be talked down, and she was almost done with the pentagram so Damon and Abby attacked from different sides. They would try to subdue Emily until they could figure out how to get Bonnie back. They didn’t get that far though as she threw out her hands and impaled them both on trees.

“Emily, don’t do this,” Abby begged through her pain. This was the first time she’d been hurt like this since she became a vampire almost fifteen years ago. “Please. Let us right the wrongs that were done back then.”

“You truly are lost, my granddaughter,” Emily said sadly as she finished the pentagram.

The next thing any of them knew, Stefan was there. Elena had apparently called him too. He helped Damon down from the tree just as Abby managed to free herself. Her feet were on the ground, unlike Damon’s, so she had the leverage to break the branch she was impaled on. She would have gone to help Damon next if Stefan hadn’t already gotten there. Maybe he wasn’t /completely/ irredeemable. Neither of them were able to move far though, struggling to their feet as their healing was slowed by the fact that it was wood that did the damage. “Hello, Emily,” Stefan said once Damon was on the ground.

“Stefan,” she greeted him. “These people don’t deserve this. They should never have to know such evil.”

“What do you mean evil?” Stefan asked worriedly, wondering what the hell was going on here.

“Emily! I swear to god, I’ll make you regret this!” Damon struggled to his feet.

“I won’t let you unleash them into this world,” Emily snapped.

“Them?” Stefan asked incredulously. Surely she couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. “Emily, what did you do?”

“To save her, I had to save them,” Emily said cryptically.

“You saved everyone in the church?” Stefan asked, knowing the significance of where they were. And it was obvious, given Damon’s involvement, that the ‘her’ in question was Katherine.

“With one comes all,” Emily answered, just as Damon made it back to his feet, much better at fighting through the pain than Abby. “Incendia!” she called up the fire in the pentagram to keep everyone back before he got too close.

Chapter Text

Stefan ignored Abby who was trying to find a way through the fire and focused on Damon. “Damon, you can’t do this!”

“Why not?!” Damon asked angrily, shoving Stefan’s hands off him. “They killed twenty-seven people and called it a war battle. You don’t think they deserve to be free?”

“Twenty-seven /vampires/ Damon,” Stefan argued. “They were /vampires/. You can’t just bring them back.”

“You don’t think vampires deserve to live? That we don’t count as people?” Damon pointed out. “And you say /I’m/ the evil one?”

They were distracted from their argument by Elena running up calling for Bonnie and Stefan detoured to grab her. He’d sped on ahead and left her to catch up, and now he needed to protect her from his brother and this other vampire whoever she was. It was too late by then anyway as Emily finished her spell and the amulet exploded into a million pieces. “No!” Damon and Abby cried at the same time just as the flames died down and they both blurred to her to continue their original plan. To restrain her until Bonnie was back.

Just as they grabbed her, Stefan was there and flung Damon away and then the other vampire too. “Leave her alone!” he yelled.

“You really believe that I would hurt my own daughter?!” Abby asked incredulously. The only reason she wasn’t doing the same to get him away from her was the fear of hurting Bonnie in a fight.

“Your daugher?” Stefan asked horrified and turned to Damon. “You turned Bonnie’s mother? No wonder you have her so brainwashed.”

“Damnit Stefan,” Bonnie came back to herself to shove him away. Magically which meant he skidded across the ground. “As usual, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” She then turned to Damon. “I’m sorry, Uncle Damon. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Shh, it’s alright baby,” Abby blurred back over to pull her into a hug. “We know. It wasn’t your fault.”

Damon kept his attention on Stefan and Elena, guarding against another attack, but he did tell her, “Your mom’s right, kiddo. This was all Emily. She used you.”

“She was your friend,” Bonnie said with tears in her eyes, knowing the betrayal he must be feeling right now.

“Clearly that was a lie too,” Damon said bitterly before bringing up the more important matter. “You told Elena about vampires,” he said accusingly to Stefan.

“I found out on my own,” Elena said defensively. “He just confirmed it.” She’d even dumped him for a while after she found out, but once he proved that he wasn’t a monster like the rest of them, she took him back. She’d been trying to subtly influence Bonnie away from them, but now knowing that Damon had turned her mother, it was no wonder it didn’t work.

“How long has she known?” Damon asked his brother.

“Two months,” Stefan answered.

“And you didn’t think I deserved to know that my secret was out too?” Damon asked incredulously. “At least tell me she’s compelled to secrecy?”

“I trust her,” Stefan said, squaring up for a fight. And he got one too. Damon shared a look with Abby before attacking Stefan. And this time didn’t even give him a chance to get any purchase. Just grabbed him and wrenched his arms behind his back in a way that he couldn’t even get the leverage to get free.

While he was doing that, Abby blurred towards Elena, who let out a yelp of fright, but didn’t even have a chance to try and run. “Where?” Abby asked Damon.

“Her necklace. The chain is clear,” Damon told her. Abby took off the necklace and then compelled her with the standard secrecy compulsion before letting her go and stepping back. Which was Damon’s cue to let go of Stefan too.

Stefan was just about to attack Damon for this, but then Elena ran crying into his arms, her necklace clutched in her hand. “H-how could you?” Elena asked Abby horrified.

“It’s not like I hurt you, Elena. I just protected us from you setting the genocidal town council after us,” Abby told her.

“She’s right,” Bonnie tried to get through to her friend. “If I’d known you knew, I would have ensured secrecy too. It’s for everyone’s safety. The council would destroy us all if they had their way.”

“J-just take me home, Stefan. Please,” Elena said through her tears, hurt that even her best friend was turning against her.

“Yeah, come on,” Stefan said with a glare back at Damon, Abby, and even Bonnie. “At least you can’t release those vampires now and bring death on this town.”

Abby opened her mouth to say something, but Damon cut her off. “Don’t bother. He’ll never understand.”

“He’s right. I’ve tried. It really is like talking to a brick wall,” Bonnie sighed. “I /am/ sorry I destroyed the necklace thing.”

“You mean /Emily/ destroyed it,” Damon pointed out.

“But why didn’t you tell us you had it?” Abby asked now that they had time to talk about it. “You found and wore a magical talisman without telling me or your grandmother?”

“I-I don’t know. I-I mean…it felt like it belonged to me. As soon as I touched it, I knew it was mine and that I had to protect it. I thought about telling you a bunch of times, but…but it felt wrong to. I can’t explain it,” Bonnie said regretfully.

“The amulet must have been influencing her from the start,” Damon guessed.

“Was it really the only way?” Bonnie asked worriedly.

“It was the only easy way,” Abby sighed.

“What’s the hard way?” Damon asked, hope renewed that they would be able to get in there after all. That all those innocent people in there wouldn’t have to suffer forever. That his /friends/ in there wouldn’t have to suffer forever.

“Every spell has a counterspell,” Abby told him. “I don’t dare hope that we could find Emily’s lost grimoire to get it, but maybe, with a magical analysis of the ward, we might be able to create a new one.”

“Which would take years probably,” Damon sighed. He’d seen them craft enough complicated magic to know that much.

“Perhaps even decades. But there will be an end to their torment,” Abby promised him. “We won’t give up.”

“I know you won’t,” Damon said wearily. “Come on. Let’s get you back home to your grandmother, and then I need to head home to my husband. Maybe we can come up with some ideas where to look for Emily’s lost grimoire.”

“I’ll help in any way I can,” Bonnie promised, following them back.

Once Damon saw Abby and Bonnie home, he headed home himself and, once again, stomped up ten flights of stairs. “What happened? Still no luck finding the amulet?” Enzo asked with a frown once he came in, not sure why that would have him in such a mood all of a sudden unless he was just losing patience.

“Oh we found it,” Damon scoffed. “Emily apparently enchanted it to allow her to possess one of her descendants. It’s destroyed now.”

“But…Emily was the one who gave it to you to start with!” Enzo said incredulously.

“And clearly never intended me to use it,” Damon said bitterly. He hadn’t even considered that she put the spell on it to return it to her family. It was a common spell that witches used, but she’d given him the amulet for a reason so he wouldn’t have thought she did that.

“I’m sorry, love,” Enzo said sympathetically. He knew how betrayal felt. “How’s Bonnie? I’m guessing she was the one possessed?” Sheila would have been more careful and would have recognized the signs in time to prevent it.

“She feels awful about her part in this, but the amulet had her under it’s spell as soon as she got it. Made her keep it secret until Emily was able to get strong enough to possess her or however that worked.” There had to be a reason that it had taken two months before Emily took her over, but he didn’t know enough about magic to know what that reason was. “Other than that, she seemed fine, but you know Sheila will be doing a whole bevy of diagnostic spells and her mother will be watching her for any adverse effects for a while too.”

“Yeah, I would imagine,” Enzo said wryly. “So all those poor sods in the tomb are trapped forever?”

“Not necessarily,” Damon shook his head. “If we can find Emily’s lost grimoire, we should be able to manage it. Otherwise it’ll take a few decades to write a new spell to get them out.”

“Alright, how about this. We go out, have a good meal, blow off some steam, and then tomorrow we’ll start brainstorming ways to find the grimoire while Sheila and Abby work on a new spell,” Enzo laid out a plan of attack. Abby may not have magic anymore, but she still knew magic and was still a magical researcher. Damon easily agreed to the plan, letting his husband’s calm assurance soothe his rough edges. Enzo really was his rock in every way.

Chapter Text

The next day, once classes were over…the last class before Thanksgiving break in fact, Damon and Enzo found a nice outdoor cafe to relax and brainstorm at. Which led them to the idea of trying to retrace the steps of those who killed Emily to see if they may have hidden it somewhere. Damon knew that all the founders kept journals back then. For posterity they called it. Since one of them had an invitation into all the founder’s houses due to the amulet search, and they did both remember seeing old journals there, it wouldn’t be difficult to get them. Damon had the Salvatore house, the Gilbert house, and the Lockwood house. Enzo had the Fell house and the Forbes house. Then it was just a matter of finding the time and getting in to get them.

They had something of a setback though when Damon got word that Zach Salvatore had been killed. By a vampire, in fact, which had the council all up in arms. Which meant they took a little detour to investigate with Abby and Sheila’s help. The fact that Stefan was blaming Damon according to Bonnie wasn’t surprising at all. Nor was it surprising that Stefan wouldn’t believe Bonnie when she told him otherwise. Stefan just said that it was Damon paying him back for interfering over the tomb and breaking their deal, using the fact that Damon had promised retribution if Stefan went against him again as proof. Damon just let it go in one ear and out the other as he tried to find the real culprit. He may be done with the Salvatores, but they were still his family and he wasn’t going to stand aside while some vampires killed them.

It took them a week to track down the vampire in question and Damon and Enzo cornered him in the alley behind the Grill just as it was closing at midnight. Which made sense given that he didn’t have a daylight ring. Damon wanted information though so they didn’t go straight for the kill. Damon buried a stake in his gut to keep him from fighting, which was Enzo’s cue to pull up a video and record on his phone. Maybe someday Stefan would listen, or maybe someone else might listen to Stefan’s lies and come after him, but either way he wanted proof of his innocence. Once Enzo was recording, he turned to the impaled vampire and said, “Let’s start with an easy one. What’s your name?”

“Noah,” the vampire said weakly. “Noah Chambers.”

“Why are you here in Mystic Falls?” Damon asked.

“Same reason you are,” Noah said hatefully. “For Katherine.”

“Yeah, I don’t care about Katherine,” Damon scoffed. “You can have her.” He got the important part of that answer though. He was here for the tomb and knew about the tomb. “Is anyone else with you?” When Noah refused to answer that question, Damon just moved on. He could come back to that one later, but he had other things he wanted to know. “Were you the one that killed Zach Salvatore?”

“Yes,” Noah spat. “And I don’t regret it.”

“Why?” Damon wondered.

“He’s a founder. Isn’t that enough?” Noah said hatefully.

“Not when he’s my family,” Damon said dangerously.

“It was self-defense,” Noah said quickly, remembering that he was at Damon’s mercy. Anna thought that Damon might be brought to their side, so maybe he would let him go.

“Self-defense how?” Damon asked suspiciously.

“He spotted me in the woods and followed me while I was checking on the tomb. I didn’t notice him. Once we were underground, he came at me with a stake,” Noah told him. Idiot had thought he could take on a vampire.

“And killing him was the only way you could think to handle it?” Damon asked with narrowed eyes.

“He was still a founder. He deserved it. Your family or not. And I couldn’t have him knowing where the tomb was,” Noah pointed out.

“You should have been more careful, Noah,” Damon made a decision. “Letting a human spot you and then follow you god knows how long without even noticing. I’m doing the world a favor by removing your idiocy,” he said as he pulled the stake out of Noah’s gut and put it through his heart.

“You never got around to asking him about accomplices again,” Enzo pointed out wryly as the body hit the ground.

“Doesn’t matter. It dawned on me that there could only be one person he was answering to. If anyone else knows about the tomb, it would be Annabelle Zhu. And she wouldn’t suffer his stupidity either. She was probably just waiting for me to do the dirty work after he killed a Salvatore,” Damon shrugged, motioning Enzo to stop recording.

“She gonna be a problem?” Enzo asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Probably not. It’s just her mother in there,” Damon said unconcernedly. “If she wanted to cause trouble, she’d have done a lot more already. And anyone here for the tomb would have been here for months.”

“That makes sense,” Enzo nodded his understanding. “So we just call it over and done with?”

“That’s my plan, unless you have a reason we shouldn’t?”

“Nope. All good with me too,” Enzo agreed as he picked up the body so they could go take care of it. Once they got home, Enzo sent Damon the video and Damon sent it to Stefan and, after a moment’s thought, sent it to Bonnie too with a note that she could show it to Elena if she thought it necessary. With Elena knowing about vampires, Stefan might manage to convince her that Damon had killed Zach. Not that he cared much what a teenage girl thought of him in general, but she was the daughter of vampire hunters and might even manage to find a loophole in the secrecy compulsion if she tried hard enough to alert the council. And her thinking he was going on a killing spree and starting with his own family could be a good enough reason for her to try.

Since they had the culprit now, they could turn their attention to getting the necessary journals so that they could hopefully find the old grimoire. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones with the same idea. And Noah had been sloppy enough that Stefan knew what they were looking for and why. For once, Stefan’s assumption that Damon was looking for the same thing was right, so the race was on. And it was a race that Damon and Enzo didn’t even know they were in. Not until Anna caught up with them and let them know. “I need your help,” she told Damon as she approached slowly with her hands in plain sight. She knew that he killed Noah, and wasn’t going to fault him for it after Noah killed a Salvatore, but she wasn’t sure if he would blame her or if he knew that Noah had been working for her in the first place.

“We’re already working on the tomb issue, Annabelle,” Damon told her.

“I know. So have I been,” she said. “I think we’re actually working off the same idea given that the Forbes and Lockwood journals are missing.”

“You have the Salvatore, Gilbert, and Fell journals,” Damon guessed.

“The Gilbert and Fell, yes. I think Stefan hid the Salvatore ones. He knows what we’re after. And he might have a copy of the Gilbert one. The teacher Jeremy loaned it too probably copied it before I swiped the original,” Anna told him.

“So what is it you need my help with? Getting the Salvatore ones from Stefan?” Damon asked.

“That or making sense of this part here,” she showed him the passage in the Gilbert journal. If he didn’t know what it meant, surely it would be in the Salvatore journal.

“Where my father hid his secrets,” Damon read. “Damnit!” He shoved it back to her and told Enzo, “Call the Bennetts. Get them to the old Salvatore estate ASAP and then take Annabelle to get some blood and meet us at the tomb.” He wanted someone guarding her so she didn’t do anything stupid and wouldn’t trust anyone but Enzo with that job.

“I need to stop and pick up Jeremy Gilbert on the way,” Anna told him.

“No. Absolutely not. You are not going to sacrifice a kid for this,” Damon told her.

“If you want your mother back, you do this our way,” Enzo threw his weight behind Damon on the subject.

“Okay, fine,” Anna sighed. She didn’t like it, but she knew better than to turn down their help. They had three vampires and two witches to go against her and Ben. And Ben was still a newbie even if it wasn’t daylight still so he couldn’t fight. She would play nice as long as it meant she could get her mother back.

Chapter Text

Damon met up with the Bennetts as their car stopped at the end of the small path leading there. Damon sped ahead to check on things and left the three women to catch up. Abby and Sheila had tried to leave Bonnie behind, but she wouldn’t hear of it and they didn’t have time to argue. Even if they found the spell, Sheila would need Bonnie’s help to cast it anyway. She just wanted to make sure they could find it in the first place. Damon got there to find Stefan already digging up their father’s grave with Elena’s help. He would try to wait for the rest of them to show up before confronting them at least, but if it came to it, he would take them on himself and just hope that Elena didn’t get hurt in the crossfire.

By the time they pulled out the book and started talking about burning it, Sheila, Abby, and Bonnie were in sight, so he stepped out to stop them. “I never thought you would stoop so low, Stefan,” he said coldly.

“You left me no choice, Damon,” Stefan argued. “If you weren’t so intent on releasing all those monsters to destroy this town, then I wouldn’t have to do this.”

“And what makes you think they’re monsters, Stefan huh? They lived here perfectly peacefully for months before they were betrayed by their friends. By their neighbors. Some of them even by their lovers. They didn’t deserve to be trapped in a tomb suffering unending torment for a century and a half,” Damon argued.

“They’re vampires,” Stefan snapped as though that should be explanation enough.

“Vampires are people too, as you would know if you opened your eyes,” Sheila snapped as she stepped out of the trees, holding out her hand for the grimoire that flew into it. “Vampires have emotions, much stronger than human emotions even. They have friends and family and jobs and lives. They love and they hope and they dream. They are only monsters when they choose to be.” She knew that would mean the most coming from her as opposed to Abby who /was/ a vampire or Bonnie who was young enough to be gullible.

“And you, Elena. I’m surprised at you. We welcomed you into our home. We considered you family. And you betray us? Try to steal and destroy our heritage. Our legacy. And for what? So you can inflict even more suffering on the poor souls who have already suffered enough?” Abby said disappointedly.

“How could you, Elena? I know Stefan filled your head with all these lies about vampires, but to let it turn you into a genocidal bigot…to betray your friends. Sure you’ve only known Damon in passing, but you know he’s a good guy. And you’ve known my mom very well for your whole life. She’s been a vampire for as long as you can remember and to suddenly think her evil just because of her race?” Bonnie chimed in, beyond hurt that Elena was a part of this.

“But all those vampires will kill everyone,” Elena tried to defend herself despite her shame at their words.

“Do you really believe us so callous as to allow that? As to not make sure they’re willing to go in peace before releasing them?” Sheila asked.

“Any that are intent on vengeance against the founders, will be put out of their misery. No matter how much the founders deserve it,” Damon added.

“You can’t blame innocent people for what happened a hundred and forty-five years ago,” Stefan snapped, irritated that they were trying to twist everything around.

“They’re far from innocent,” Damon snapped. “They’re still hell-bent on genocide against anyone that doesn’t fit their views. They already know too much. And don’t think they wouldn’t burn the witches right alongside us if they got half a chance.”

“But we will still not allow anyone to commit a massacre by killing them,” Sheila added before they thought otherwise. “Nor will we allow the vampires to continue on in their torment any longer. Death would have been kinder than the fate that they’ve endured.”

“Listen, Damon. I know you want Katherine back, alright. I get it. But please…don’t do this. Get Katherine if you must, but kill the rest,” Stefan begged, still seeing him as the ringleader who had groomed the Bennetts to their views. If he could convince Damon, they would be convinced too.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Katherine, Stefan,” Damon scoffed. “You really think I’m screwed up enough to still be pining over her after three weeks as her side piece? Please,” he rolled his eyes. “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do. Because I have a friend in there who doesn’t deserve this any more than the rest of them do. And you’re sitting here and demanding the cold-blooded murder of twenty-seven suffering helpless people, but you think I’m the evil one.”

“Stop twisting everything around, Damon!” Stefan snapped heatedly. “Stop trying to make me look like the bad guy! We both know better.”

“I truly hope, brother, that someday you snap out of your delusions and see the truth, but I’m done trying to convince you,” Damon sighed and shook his head. “Is the spell there?” he asked Sheila who was flipping through the grimoire looking for it.

“It is,” she nodded. “Let’s get this done.”

“I’m coming with you,” Elena decided. She had to see for herself. See if they were telling the truth or not. See if she’d been so wrong. If Stefan was so wrong.

“That’s not a good idea,” Damon shook his head. “They’ll be waking up from a century and a half of starvation and you’d be like a buffet.”

“We can keep her safe,” Bonnie said, needing to give her best friend a chance. To see if she could get her back or if they were done for good. “We’re only waking them up one at a time anyway right?”

“I suppose…” Damon said dubiously, looking to Sheila and Abby for their opinions.

“I say let her come. We can even put a barrier shield around her so that no one can get to her even if we lose control,” Sheila agreed. She hated to see teenagers manipulated so far astray, so if they could break that, then they would.

“I’m coming too then. If you think I’m going to leave her alone with you, you’re crazy,” Stefan said dangerously.

“Will this barrier keep people /in/ too?” Damon asked Sheila dubiously.

“Yeah. It will,” Bonnie was the one to answer.

“Let’s go then,” Damon sighed, hoping this wasn’t going to come back and bite them in the ass.

Once they got to the area, Bonnie took care of the barrier spell in one corner, trapping Stefan and Elena out of the way but where they could still see and hear. While she was doing that, Sheila was putting the truth ward in the opposite corner so that they would be able to question everyone inside as they brought them out. No one was introducing Stefan and Elena to Enzo or Anna as they got there and started separating the large number of blood bags which Damon jumped in to help with while Abby set up for the spell to release the seal.

Once everything was ready, Sheila and Bonnie took their place in the center of the circle, joining hands, as they started to chant. It was a massive outflux of magic that nearly keeled them both over for a while. Until the spell collapsed completely and all the family magic that went into it flowed back into them, refreshing them completely. “We get my mother first,” Anna said seriously as Damon and Enzo moved the large capstone.

“That’s fine, luv,” Enzo told her, knowing that Pearl had a daylight ring. “And then we’ll continue with those with daylight enchantments first until the sun sets.”

“There’s no need for that,” Sheila told them. “I made a couple dozen rings of various sizes in advance of this. Any who are willing to go in peace will get one.”

“That’ll be an incentive for sure,” Damon chuckled.

“Then we should get Harper after my mother. He’s her dearest friend but was never deemed deserving of a ring by Katherine who treated him like a slave,” Anna suggested.

“If they’re such close friends, then alright. They can leave together,” Abby agreed for the group as the four vampires went through checking bodies.

About the same time Anna found her mother, Damon found his old friend Henry who would be third in the priority list and would also need a ring. While Anna took her mother out, Enzo carried the man she indicated, and Damon grabbed Henry. Abby stayed behind to organize the rest of them and move them to the entrance to wait their turn. Anna set Pearl on the rock outcropping that Sheila indicated and then grabbed the first blood bag to feed her as they got started.

Chapter Text

Elena choked a sob at the sight of the woman they brought out of the cave. The idea that she was still alive and suffering in that state was horrifying. The idea that she had tried to be a part of keeping her there was sobering. Her initial fear of learning that vampires were real had been stoked by Stefan who immediately started convincing her that vampires were the monsters she feared, but that he was the only exception. It sounded stupid to her now, looking at the level of suffering that point of view could inflict. Most of the work had been done by the pointing out of the inherent prejudice in judging an entire race of beings, but this just brought that into stark relief. If they were telling the truth that these people were peaceful and that they would kill those who weren’t, then she would be on their side.

Pearl woke up after the first blood bag, and was moving after the second, but still very weak. Damon held out a hand to keep Anna from giving her the third for now so Sheila could ask her questions. “We are willing to release you, but only if you don’t intend to seek revenge on the innocent descendants of those who harmed you,” Sheila told her.

“I have only ever wished for peace. I will defend myself, but if peace is an option, I will always take it,” Pearl answered.

“Then you will be free to go and leave Mystic Falls behind,” Sheila told her.

“Mystic Falls is my home,” Pearl argued. “I will promise peace, but I have no wish to leave my home. I want to rebuild my life. Get back my apothecary, even if I must /purchase/ it back from those who stole it.”

“The world is very different than you remember, Miss Pearl,” Damon told her, defaulting to the manners that she last knew and would expect. “The council here still knows of and hunts vampires, but as far as most of the world is concerned, they don’t exist. Peace will be much easier to find elsewhere.”

“And apothecaries aren’t actually a thing anymore,” Enzo added. “An herbalist shop could do well, but medicines are only distributed by those who have spend many years in school to become qualified to do so. There are a lot of people who still use the natural remedies of herbalists though.”

“This is true?” Pearl asked Anna to confirm.

“Yes, mama. If we’re not going to fight, we need to leave. I have rebuilt the fortune that the Gilberts stole when they betrayed us and then some. We can buy you a herbalist shop somewhere that no one knows of vampires,” Anna told her. The moment her mother promised peace, she knew her dreams of revenge would be forever unfulfilled.

“Then we will leave. Perhaps we will find a new home. In a world that has forgotten us, perhaps it will be easier to do so,” Pearl said thoughtfully. “I wish to take Harper with us though. I will not leave him to make his way alone.”

“We were already planning to get him next,” Abby said as she carried him out and Anna helped her mother off to the side to give her the other two blood bags to get her reasonably steady as Abby took over the feeding of Harper for his first two bags. Once he was awake, he too promised peace and that he would go wherever Miss Pearl went, so he was also given two more bags by Anna who then led them both out to find a new place to go and to teach them about this new world.

Damon grabbed his old friend next. He’d always felt bad that he was too wrapped up in Katherine to pay much attention to him back then, but he would make up for it now. He even had the apartment next to theirs ready for Henry, though he would be staying on their couch until he was steady. As soon as he was awake and able to move, his eyes settled on Damon. “Hey Hero,” Henry said happily.

“What have I told you about calling me ‘hero’ Wattles,” Damon said mock-sternly.

“Well quit being one then, and I might stop,” Henry chuckled. “This makes three times you’ve saved my life now.”

“If I’d known I was gonna get adopted by a puppy, I might have thought twice before pulling that canon off you on the battlefield,” Damon joked as he had often since the incident.

“Liar,” Henry snorted amusedly as he was given a third blood bag. Just his demeanor told Damon that he could be trusted even before Sheila got around to her part.

“We are willing to release you, but only if you don’t intend to seek revenge on the innocent descendants of those who harmed you,” she said as she would with everyone.

“Aw hell, you know me, Lieutenant. I’d never hurt anyone if I didn’t have to. Revenge? No. No way. I just want to live in peace,” Henry said emphatically, more to Damon than to Sheila, but it was still covered by the truth ward either way, so it was good enough.

“I do know you, Wattles,” Damon chuckled. “But it still needed to be said. A hundred and forty-five years of suffering can change a man.”

“I ‘spose I can understand that,” Henry said, as he took the fourth blood bag, letting Damon help him up and over to another seat.

“Just hang here for a while and once we’re done, you can crash on my couch until you’re steady and then I’ve got a place ready for you,” Damon told him.

“There you go, being a hero again,” Henry joked cheerfully as he settled in to wait, wondering how many more there were to go.

From there they were just pulling them out at random and the next one gave his name as Frederick after the second blood bag. When he was offered to leave in peace, his rant against the very idea, vowing revenge on not just the founders but the entire town of Mystic Falls that, according to him, was founded on their blood and with their fortunes. Enzo, once he got the nod from Damon, reached into his chest and yanked out his heart, pulling a horrified gasp from Bonnie who turned away.

Abby pulled her into a hug, shielding her eyes from the view. “I know. It’s horrible to see someone die for the first time. This is why we’d hoped to do it the easy way so you wouldn’t have to be here.”

“I know, Mom,” Bonnie forced her breathing even. “But I’m part of the supernatural world. A feudal society. I’m going to have to face the violence of this world eventually. Better that I see it now in a controlled environment than when someone’s trying to kill me for being a witch.”

“How did you get to be so wise?” Abby said proudly, pressing a kiss to Bonnie’s forehead.

“I had good role models,” Bonnie grinned, still a bit queasy, but getting over it. When the next woman, Bethanne, had a similar rant, but included them for killing Frederick, Damon yanked her heart out too.

Once they had the last one out on his way away from Mystic Falls, they realized someone was missing and Damon took another walk back through before returning. “Katherine’s not here,” he said with a frown.

“Which means that either she died rather than got locked in the tomb, or she’s been free all this time and abandoned the rest of them to their fate,” Enzo pointed out.

“I thought you didn’t care about Katherine?” Stefan spoke up smugly.

“I don’t. Just expected her to be here and all,” Damon shrugged. “Looks like we’re done then. We just gonna throw those bodies back into the tomb and put the door back in?”

“Might as well. Easiest way to dispose of them,” Enzo shrugged. Of the twenty-six vampires, seven of them were dead, eighteen of them were on their way out of town, and Henry was coming with them.

Once the bodied were tossed back inside, Abby told Damon, “Why don’t you head back. Get Henry out of here and get him a real meal. We’ll let them go once you’re gone,” she gestured to Stefan and Elena, the latter of whom was in full tears now at seeing everything she’d thought to be true proven wrong. Stefan just looked constipated as he tried to figure out if this was some elaborate ruse or not.

“Sure thing, luv,” Enzo leaned over to kiss her cheek since she was right there. “We’ll catch you later.”

“Come on, Henry. Let’s get you fed for real.”

“Just don’t let me hurt anyone, Hero. I’m not sure how good my control is going to be right now,” Henry begged.

“We won’t, mate. Don’t you worry. We’ve got your back,” Enzo promised as they headed to their car, passing out of earshot of Stefan.

“I’m Henry,” he introduced himself to the new person now that attention had been drawn to him.

“I’m Enzo. Damon’s husband,” he shook the offered hand as they reached the cars, chuckling at the wide-eyed look on Henry’s face at the word ‘husband’.

“It’s a whole new world, buddy,” Damon laughed as he opened the car door for him.

Chapter Text

Stefan and Elena were kept behind the barrier until the rest of the cleanup of all the magical evidence was completed before Bonnie took down the barrier only to nearly be bowled over in a hug by a teary Elena. “I’m sorry, Bonnie. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so scared about vampires being real and then Stefan said…I’m sorry,” she babbled.

“It’s okay, Elena. I understand,” Bonnie told her, glad that it looked like she wouldn’t have to lose her best friend after all.

“You should head on home,” Abby told Stefan seriously, when he looked torn whether to drag Elena away from them or not.

“But…”

“Elena will be safe with us,” Sheila told him. “Just as she has been her entire life. Go.”

Stefan hesitated another moment before following the order. He still wasn’t sure if it was the best thing or not, but taking on the Bennett matriarch wasn’t to be done lightly. If Elena didn’t want to be there, he would have fought to the death if necessary, but her choice was obvious, so he would respect it. He could talk to her later, and so help him if they did hurt her, he would make them regret it.

He didn’t know what to think right now as he headed home though. It had certainly /seemed/ convincing, but he knew Damon was a good actor. He’d spend Stefan’s whole life manipulating him until Lexi saved him from it. Showed him what Damon was really like even before vampirism had made him a monster. And every time Stefan had let himself doubt that before, Damon had been right there to prove Lexi right. He’d always considered himself so lucky she was willing to keep saving him from his desire to believe the best of his brother. When he kept letting Damon get back into his head. And she’d been so proud of him in ninety-four when he’d seen it himself without her needing to save him. But now here he was starting to doubt again. He would try to see if he could save himself again though before calling her for help. He wanted to stop having to rely on her so much. She’d bailed him out back in eighteen sixty-five, and again when she finally found him in nineteen twenty two, and even when Damon abandoned him in nineteen forty-two. He’d even needed her to help him stop doubting himself after the fact in ninety-four. He was a hundred and sixty-three years old. It was time he learned to stand on his own two feet without her holding his hand every time Damon tried to twist him up in knots and manipulate him. His brother had always been his weakness.

Once Stefan left, Sheila and Abby shared a look between them and then at the hugging girls before they decided to trust Elena. They’d known her for her entire life, after all, and if not for Stefan getting into her head and dragging her down this recent path, trusting her would never have been in question. “Do you want us to give you some time, child?” Sheila asked Bonnie.

“Yeah. Please. I can take Elena home if you’ll leave me the car?” Bonnie asked hopefully, knowing that her mom could carry Grams home faster than the car. And that her Grams secretly loved the thrill of moving that fast. “Unless you have your car?” Bonnie asked Elena.

“No. Stefan drove me,” Elena said through her tears, still not letting go of the friend that she almost lost.

“We’ll leave you the car, sweetie,” Abby told her. “Just remember your curfew. It is a school night.”

“I will, Mom. Thanks,” Bonnie told her. She felt awful for Elena having to see all that. She was used to the idea of the violence of the supernatural world, even if she hadn’t seen it for herself yet. She’d even seen some lighter violence in some of the lawless regions of the world on their research trips, but this was Elena’s first experience with it completely unprepared. It was no wonder she was falling apart like this. She needed something big to snap her out of the dangerous path she was walking though, and at least it seemed to have worked. She just hoped it didn’t break Elena for good. “You okay, Elena?” she asked worriedly as they left.

“Yeah. Sorry,” Elena pulled herself together and let go. “M-maybe we can go up top?” They always loved being in the woods, but this cave where she’d just seen such horrors was what she needed some distance from.

“Yeah. Come on,” Bonnie led her up the stairs that had been carved out of the clay. “Do you want to go hang out at your house? Or mine?”

“No, that’s okay,” Elena shook her head. “I kinda want to be outside right now. And I don’t want to deal with other people yet.” Caroline would be good if she was here and if she could talk freely in front of her, but for right now, just her and Bonnie. The only two of their ‘musketeers’ that knew about all the scary stuff. She found a tree to sit next to and asked her, “Will you tell me the real stuff? About vampires and witches and your world and all?”

“Did he convince you that witches were evil too?” Bonnie asked worriedly.

“No, all he said about witches were that they could be good or bad, and I never would have believed you were evil no matter what. But he did convince me that Damon had you manipulated so that you couldn’t see his evil and the evil of vampires had been brainwashing you your whole life for that. I was…worried about you, but I never thought you were evil. Please know that.”

“No, I do. That much was obvious,” Bonnie assured her. “But I hope you see now that he was the one manipulating you. And manipulating you to manipulate me even. Damon’s never manipulated anyone that I know of.”

“That you know of?” Elena asked, wanting to get more of a measure of the person at the center of this whole thing. Well one of them, since Stefan was clearly at the center of it too. Their relationship was what was poisoning everything else. At least from Stefan’s side and she wondered if it was from Damon’s side too.

“One thing you have to understand, Elena, the key to understanding the supernatural world at all, is that nothing is black and white. Even the human world isn’t black and white as evidenced by all the divisive issues like the death penalty, wars, attempted genocides, abortion, LGBT rights, and so on,” Bonnie wanted her to understand first and waited to see that dawn on her before she continued. “The supernatural world is even worse in that since we don’t have a government or a legal system. The human system doesn’t work for us in a lot of ways.”

“In what ways?” Elena asked curiously, trying to see all sides of things.

“For example the justice system. No vampire or witch would ever get a fair day in court for any alleged crime. Humans will never accept what they can’t control. The genocidal town council is just one of a thousand examples of how humans will react when they find out about us. They will either want to destroy us, or want to use us for their own ends.”

“I wouldn’t. And I’m sure there are others that wouldn’t either,” Elena pointed out.

“You’re right. There are plenty of individuals that wouldn’t. But when dealing with any sort of large group, things change,” Bonnie explained. “Like mob mentality, I know you’ve heard of.”

“Yeah. I guess I get that. So because humans as a whole can’t know about the supernatural, their system can’t be adjusted to work for the supernatural,” Elena thought she understood where Bonnie was going with that.

“Yeah. Exactly. We don’t have any laws or police or anyone to protect us. We’re a feudal society. You should read up on those sometime and get a better idea of what I mean. But basically, we have to take care of ourselves. I mean, if some random human mugs a witch on the street, sure. We can call the cops and all. But if said human attacks a witch for /being/ a witch, that’s a lot more difficult because that reasoning can’t be used in court.”

“That makes sense. So you have to take care of it yourself in those cases,” Elena nodded.

“Yes. And sometimes that’s a messy business. Sometimes it even means killing people before they can kill you or someone you care about. When they can’t be stopped by reason or any other methods, that can be the only thing left,” she explained. “Just like how cops sometimes have to kill someone in the line of duty to stop them from hurting people or when their own lives are in danger.”

“I understand,” Elena said thoughtfully. “But someone who doesn’t understand that and just sees the black and white and won’t listen to any other reasons just sees the bad,” she was trying to understand where Stefan was coming from and hopefully help him to open his eyes too. If this hadn’t done it already.

“Damon’s tried to get through to Stefan so many times over the years, but Stefan just won’t listen,” Bonnie knew where she was going with that. “You’ve seen me try too. If you think you can have better luck, go for it. I know Uncle Damon wishes that he could have his brother back someday. Just don’t hold your breath for a miracle because that’s what it would take.”

Chapter Text

Stefan called Elena at ten to make sure she got home safely, though she seemed rather annoyed that he had to ask. He didn’t have high hopes for the talk she said they needed to have after school the next day. It wouldn’t end up as bad as he thought though. Not for his relationship anyway. For his mental state was a different story. She took him back to her house for their talk and she opened with a rather inflamatory question. “I need to know if you truly do believe that an entire race of beings are inherently evil or if you’ve just been manipulating me to think so for some nefarious reason.”

“I would never manipulate you, Elena. That’s Damon talking. Twisting things around like he always does,” Stefan tried to argue.

“No, Stefan. You /have/ been manipulating me. That much is obvious in hindsight. Everything about the way you get me to believe what you want me to believe. What I want to know is if you really believe that too or if you have ulterior motives,” Elena said firmly.

“How have I been manipulating you?” Stefan asked, trying to make her think it through and give him places he could poke holes rather than just general statements. “What have I done or said that is manipulative?”

“Giving me broad generalizations without any context. Using my reasonable fear to blow it up enough to believe those generalizations rather than talking me through my fear and showing me the truth,” Elena started with the big parts.

“I have been telling you the truth,” Stefan argued.

“No, you never told me how it’s perfectly possible for vampires to feed from people without hurting anyone,” Elena told him.

“Because it doesn’t work that way. Sure it’s possible, but not all the time. It’s very rare for a vampire to be able to keep control with every person they bite. Any vampire that feeds on humans is going to kill some of them,” Stefan pointed out. Lexi was one of the rare ones that could keep control all the time.

“That’s not what I hear,” Elena shook her head.

“Who are you going to believe, Elena? Me, whose lived through it, or Bonnie who knows only what Damon tells her?” Stefan asked.

“How about this for evidence. There are millions of vampires all over the world. They need to eat the equivalent of three full people a week each. Even if they only killed a fraction of those they fed on, there would be no hiding vampires from humans. Everyone would know, no matter how many compulsions there were. People would notice patterns and start digging. There would be no secrets,” Elena pointed out.

“There can’t be that many vampires,” Stefan shook his head in denial.

“No? Vampires have been around for at least a thousand years right?” She got a nod. “And every vampire, once they’re turned, can turn others, so we’re looking at an exponential component for population growth. Even if every vampire only turned say, five people every hundred years, how many would there be now?” she asked pointedly. “And I’m sure there are vampires out there that turn a lot more than five people every hundred years, just as I’m sure there are those who turn less.”

Stefan furrowed his brow confusedly as he thought that through. “There must be some other factor then. Lexi told me how rare vampires are, and she would know. She keeps contact with a lot of vampires.”

“Any you’ve met?” Elena asked, getting a suspicion. She’d liked Lexi when she was here, but she was wondering now if that was another manipulation.

“No, I don’t want anything to do with vampires that hurt people,” Stefan shook his head. “And it’s not safe for me to be around vampires that feed on people anyway because I’m a ripper.”

“So she keeps you isolated from others of your kind, so your only source of information is from her?” Elena asked pointedly.

“It’s not like that,” Stefan said defensively. “She’s my best friend. The only person I can count on.”

“That. Right there,” Elena said pointedly. “You told me before how the only way to get you back on track when you fall off the wagon is for her to torture you, sometimes for months, to force you back on the animal blood.”

“Well, yeah. Because once I start the human blood, I don’t /want/ to go back. And because people die, I turn off my humanity from the guilt and don’t want that back either,” Stefan reminded her.

“Stefan. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Lexi is not your friend,” Elena said firmly. “I don’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing, but look at the facts. She tortures you to make you think what she wants you to think. She keeps you isolated from anyone who might show you a better way. She convinces you that any way but hers is evil to the point that you vilify an entire species.”

“Because they are evil. They can only live off the suffering of others,” Stefan grasped at straws, not wanting to believe as much of his oldest friend.

“No, Stefan. Just the fact that vampires are individuals, that they can think and reason, have their own personalities, have emotions…that means that they’re all different and they can’t possibly /all/ be evil. Whether more are evil than are good is a whole other story, but they are /people/ with the capacity to go either way. And to say that every single one of millions of vampires have chosen evil is ridiculously closed-minded bigotry.”

“I-I don’t…” Stefan trailed off as his entire world view tilted on it’s axis. He didn’t know what to believe or what to think. Everything she said made sense, but all manipulations made sense right? Or they would never work? Just like how Damon got into his head so easily, and now was doing so through Elena. But what if she was right and it /was/ Lexi that was doing the manipulating?

“Why don’t you take some time to think about it, Stefan,” Elena said sympathetically. Since he clearly really did believe all this, it must be difficult to have it all turned on its head. “Look back over the facts. What has actually happened. Who’s done what, who’s said what, and try to apply logic to both sides of the story. Forget the generalizations, and look for specific evidence and logic to support one side or the other.”

“I…um…okay. I’ll do that,” Stefan frowned. “I guess…I’ll see you tomorrow.” He left in something of a daze, mind turning over everything he thought he knew.

Elena sighed heavily once he was gone, hoping he could turn himself around. She wasn’t going to be with a bigot. With someone who used that prejudice to vilify his own family for no reason. She didn’t know what had gone on between Stefan and his brother in the past, but the fact that Stefan couldn’t or wouldn’t give her specifics led her to believe that there wasn’t as much as he thought there was. She was completely ashamed that she’d fallen for it to begin with and would be forever grateful to Bonnie and her family for stopping her before she went somewhere she couldn’t come back from. Granted, she was still wrapping her head around it all, but she was doing so from a much better perspective now and she hoped that she could help Stefan do the same thing.

Since she’d gotten the issue with Stefan handled, she called Bonnie and pitched the idea of telling Caroline about the supernatural. She hated keeping those kinds of secrets from one of her best friends and now that she knew it was some terrifying nightmare that Caroline needed to be protected from, she was all for telling her. Bonnie did reluctantly agree. Reluctantly because she knew her family would disapprove. Elena was one thing since she was dating a vampire, but Caroline didn’t have any connection to the supernatural except through them. Bonnie had long thought that the connection of lifelong best friends was good enough, and now that Elena agreed with her, she would do it anyway rather than waiting until after college like her family suggested, should their friendship last that long.

Caroline ended up taking it pretty well, finding the whole idea fascinating, and not at all phased by the fact that vampires drank human blood. Once she was assured that they didn’t need to hurt or kill people to get it and that biting them didn’t turn them into vampires. She was also perfectly accepting of the secrecy spell that Bonnie wanted to put on her. Just the fact that she got to be let in on the secret was enough. She didn’t mind not being able to share it. Much as she loved gossip, she knew that some things were too big to spread around. The secrecy spell would be the only thing that saved her from a tongue lashing when the rest of the family found out.

Chapter Text

It had only been three weeks before Christmas when the tomb was opened, so they were all gearing up for the holidays. By the time the day rolled around, Henry was perfectly steady in his diet, had caught up on the basics of the new world, and had moved into his own apartment next to Damon and Enzo’s. That meant he was invited along to the Bennett Christmas that Damon and Enzo always joined as well where he and Abby ended up hitting it off, much to the amusement of everyone else present. Abby, while she fully embraced the sexual nature of vampirism, hadn’t actually dated since Rudy had left her to raise Bonnie alone. Henry, naturally, hadn’t dated since he’d come home from the war to find that his Olive had moved on while he was gone. He’d had a century and a half in the tomb to get over her though, and didn’t let it keep him down. He was eager to embrace this new life he was offered with both hands. The fact that he’d been a confederate soldier, fighting on the side to keep slavery, had been a bit of an impediment at first before Damon reminded them that he had been too, but like him, Henry had hated everything the confederacy stood for, but wasn’t given a choice in the matter, so it blew over. By the end of the day, Abby and Henry had a date planned for New Year’s Eve.

Stefan’s holiday was spent with Elena’s family since he’d never been particularly close with Gail and Sarah. They were polite and cordial, but that was all. He’d been a bit closer with Zach, but not by that much and Zach had done everything he could to discourage Stefan from getting any closer to his family. Something Stefan completely understood. Even though he was starting to wonder if he’d been wrong about the nature of vampires, they’d had only his opinion of such to go on. That and the council which was even worse. That meant that he wasn’t particularly included in Gail and Sarah’s holiday, and they weren’t even having much of a celebration since it had only been a month since Zach’s death. Stefan and Elena had quite a few more talks in the weeks before the holiday and he was questioning everything.

He was mostly focusing on the bigger picture first, choosing to leave the delicate subject of his brother until he had his head straight about the overall issues. But his brother would be brought to the forefront of his mind soon enough when he found Gail and Sarah packing up. It turned out that they had never been accepted very much by the other founders and now that Zach was gone it was worse. They’d wanted to move away for a long time, but Zach refused to go. When Stefan offered to buy the place from them, Gail informed him that they didn’t own it. They never had. It was owned by some corporation and the Salvatores just got to live there for free. Which was part of the reason that Zach never wanted to move. That was news to Stefan who started digging to see why a corporation would own a house and then just let it for free. That meant following a rather complicated paper trail through a maze, made even more difficult by the fact that the place had been build more than a hundred years before when records were more difficult to come by.

It was mid-January before he found the name of the company, at which point he started looking for who owned the company, and particularly, who had made the initial deal for the Salvatores to keep the place, figuring that the company must have changed hands in that time, even if it was kept in the same family. What he found by the end of January was definitely eye-opening. He’d already been rethinking everything he knew about his brother once he came to terms with the idea that vampires weren’t necessarily evil. Bonnie had even shared with him how her mother ended up a vampire and how it wasn’t Damon’s fault. He’d tried to ask her about Damon more than once, but she just shut him down and told him that if he wanted to know about Damon, he should ask Damon. He wasn’t quite ready to take that step yet. He still couldn’t find his way around everything that he knew about his brother.

Finding the owner of the boarding house got him questioning how much he really did know about his brother though. To think that it had been his house all along, but even when the Salvatores rejected him, he didn’t kick them out. Even though, according to the contract he found, Damon would have had every right to legally speaking. The contract said that Damon got ten percent of the profits of the boarding house and once it shut down, they were no longer living up to their end of the contract so he could have canceled the whole thing. In fact, not long before they’d moved, Damon had gone to Gail and offered to ‘buy out’ the lease. Which, given this new information, would basically have been a gift. Gail had, naturally, rejected the offer rather rudely, which Stefan blamed himself for. Especially when she accepted the same offer from him. Now he felt like he’d basically stolen the house from his brother. But then Damon still had the option to cancel the contract, but he hadn’t. He wondered how much else he had wrong about his brother, but he still couldn’t bring himself to ask just yet. Maybe after the pageant coming up that he was more than a little nervous about he might suck it up, but he had enough on his mind right now.

Elena had apologized personally to Sheila and Abby over the grimoire situation and even asked Bonnie to pass her number to Damon when Bonnie wouldn’t give her Damon’s. When he’d called, she’d apologized to him as well and to Enzo who she’d thought so little of too. She even apologized to Henry for trying to keep him locked in the tomb. She was still trying to figure out how to contact Pearl and Anna to make amends there, definitely having caught the fact that much of the Gilbert fortune had been stolen from them. She wouldn’t be able to do anything until she had full access to her inheritance the following summer anyway though, but she’d decided to at least take care of a new shop for them. Whether that meant buying them one if they had their eye on one, reimbursing them for one they already bought, or just giving them enough to buy one themselves when they were ready would remain to be seen. She’d always known the history of her father’s clinic building, that it used to be the town apothecary, but giving that back to them wouldn’t work since they were staying away from Mystic Falls.

Bonnie had told Damon about how Stefan was asking questions and even kept him updated on how Stefan was doing with throwing off his brainwashing as Elena updated her, which made their decision easier as the Miss Mystic Falls pageant rolled around. Or at least made them suspect that the evening would be easier since the decision wasn’t in question. Neither Damon nor Enzo would miss Bonnie’s big pageant for anything. And there was no way they were attending that sort of event without being there as a couple, Stefan or no Stefan. Not letting on that they were together during the tomb opening when they were busy and there were so many other people that would likely not take it well either was one thing, but this was the sort of event that they loved. And that Bonnie was one of the contestants meant they were definitely going just as they had for Abby when she’d been a part of it twenty years before. Hopefully, with Stefan’s evolving outlook, he wouldn’t cause a scene and make them miserable all evening though. They didn’t dare hope for more than that.

They were both glad that Bonnie found an escort in a boy she had a crush on from school. Damon or Enzo would have stepped up for her if she couldn’t find someone, but they much preferred to go together. Stefan would be escorting Elena for the event with Caroline going with her boyfriend Matt. Until he bailed at the last minute, but she thankfully found a stand-in as well. While Damon and Enzo didn’t know Caroline or Elena all that well, they were Bonnie’s best friends which meant they were happy to support them as well. They might not have attended /only/ for them, especially with the Stefan complication, but since they were going anyway, those two would have their support as well.

Chapter Text

When the day of the pageant rolled around, Damon and Enzo headed to the Bennett house, along with Henry where they would lead from. Henry’s new car would carry him and Abby who were becoming a solid couple by then. Sheila would drive herself, and Damon and Enzo would bring up the rear so they could all arrive together. For Damon and Enzo, making their first appearance as a couple in Mystic Falls, much less with Stefan present, they appreciated the support of their family. They managed to make it inside and to their table without being spotted by Stefan, but they could see him off to the side with the other escorts waiting for time to line up and could tell he looked particularly nervous. Damon fondly remembered how much Stefan had always hated dancing and how jittery the prospect of doing so made him.

Stefan hoped he was doing well enough hiding his nerves as Elena came down to meet him looking gorgeous in her blue gown. It wasn’t until they were walking out, halfway to their places, that he noticed his brother and did a double take to believe what he was seeing. Damon with his arm around another guy who was leaning comfortably against his side. Was his brother dating a man? He couldn’t make that make sense. He winced when Elena pinched him to get his attention back on her and he gave her an apologetic look. He should have figured that Damon would be here with Bonnie being one of the contestants, but he could never have guessed that he would be there with a guy. Still, he kept his focus on Elena for the opening dance. And on not messing it up, very glad when he succeeded.

After the opening dance, the floor was opened for everyone, and Damon was quick to get up and offer a hand to his husband. “Shall we, my love?” he asked.

“We shall,” Enzo grinned as he took Damon’s hand letting himself be spun towards the dance floor.

All five of the contestants took a break after that first nervewracking dance, mostly to get something to drink, and Stefan took the opportunity to ask Bonnie, “Who’s that with Damon?”

“I told you, Stefan. I’m not answering questions about your brother. If you want to get to know him, ask him yourself,” Bonnie said seriously. Then Damon could control how much information Stefan got and when. Though she did find it obvious that they would be coming out with their relationship tonight since they were here together, and even wearing their wedding rings which they hadn’t the last couple times they were in Mystic Falls and expecting to run into anyone. Which was just at the tomb for Enzo and the tomb and the ball for Damon. Stefan had clearly not noticed Damon’s wedding ring during the confrontation with Emily, but there had been a lot going on that night.

Damon and Enzo danced a few songs with each other before splitting up, Damon taking a dance with Bonnie while Enzo danced with Sheila before they switched and decided to take a break before Stefan spontaneously combusted. At least they’d gotten to have a little bit of fun if Stefan was going to cause a scene. They went to grab drinks from the bar, and sure enough, Stefan cornered them on their way back. “I’m surprised to see you here, Damon.”

“We wouldn’t miss Bonnie’s big event,” Damon answered before doing the big introduction. “Stefan, this is my husband Enzo. Enzo, Stefan.”

“H-husband?” Stefan gaped, even as he took Enzo’s hand automatically. “Since when?”

“Since it was legal in Massachusetts in oh four,” Enzo chuckled. “We’ve been together since nineteen eighty though.”

“Oh! Sorry Doctor Saint John,” Caroline said sheepishly as she bumped into him, partially to remind them of where they were. If she overheard them talking about being together for thirty years, then someone else could have too. It didn’t dawn on her that their amulets to keep people from questioning their age would keep that from sounding odd. Since she knew the truth, she wasn’t as affected by it.

“It’s alright, luv,” Enzo chuckled.

“Neither of you changed your names when you got married?” Stefan asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We’re both well known professionally under our current names. We decided not to mess with that,” Damon answered.

“Are you really a doctor then? Both of you?” Stefan asked suspiciously.

“I don’t think tonight is the time or place to have this talk,” Damon cut in. “You need to be focusing on your date. If you’re really interested in talking, and actually /listening/ for once, why don’t we have lunch on Saturday? In the meantime, google is your friend,” Damon clapped Stefan’s shoulder amusedly before walking off, arm in arm with his husband to do some more dancing.

Over the course of the night, Damon and Enzo danced with Sheila a few more times, Abby a couple times when Henry was dancing with his future mother-in-law or future stepdaughter, and even had a dance each with Elena and Caroline. The fact that dancing with Elena didn’t cause a Stefan tantrum was seen as a good sign, though Stefan did watch them quite a bit for the entire evening. It wasn’t with a glare though. It was more thoughtful and confused. They just ignored it as much as they could though, and acted natural despite feeling like bugs under a microscope. For all their dances with others, the vast majority of their dances were with each other, and plenty of stolen kisses throughout the evening.

Also during that event, they confirmed that the town vervain supply was dead after the mayor took over the farm since Zach’s death. He’d apparently just transplanted the farm rather than start a new one, which meant it stayed magically inert. Something that they’d been worried about after Zach’s death. They planned to make the rounds with compulsions when everyone was mingling during the Founder’s Day celebration and end the threat of the founder’s council once and for all. Damon, Enzo, Abby, and Henry would make sure to get everyone since everyone would be in town for it. Tonight was just scouting to make sure they were vervain free. Which was why Enzo was wearing his rarely worn glasses too.

The event ended with Caroline being crowned Miss Mystic Falls and getting the spotlight dance, with Elena as runner up. Bonnie had known from the start that she wouldn’t win given that there were three founders this year. It was all but unheard of for a non-founder to beat out a founder. In another year she might have had a chance, and did, in fact, have the option to compete last year. With her birthday being right on the cusp, two days before the event, she could have qualified for either. And last year there weren’t any founders so she would have had as much chance as anyone. She wanted to do it with her friends though, even if it meant not having a chance to win. She just wanted to have fun with it and she definitely succeeded in that.

The next day, while Damon, Enzo, Sheila, Abby, and Henry were taking Bonnie out to celebrate her eighteenth birthday that had waited until after the pageant, Stefan spent the day at his computer. He took his brother’s suggestion to google seriously. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered in relation to his brother. Vampires couldn’t have ‘public’ lives after all. Could they? As soon as he typed in ‘Damon Salvatore’ though he found himself proven wrong. It seemed that yes, Damon was a doctor. In sociocultural anthropology from Georgia State University. And…he was a professor?! And had been for almost thirty years. At Pontier College right outside Mystic Falls. Just the fact that he’d been so close all this time and hadn’t ‘bothered’ him or the Salvatores was enough to upend yet another belief.

He continued along the results for his brother to find even more surprises as he got overviews of all the discoveries in the field, seeing that Damon had been all over the world doing research. Looking through the published research where he found other familiar names as coauthors. Doctor Lorenzo Saint John. Doctor Sheila Bennett. Doctor Abby Bennett. All four of them were listed as professors at Pontier College, and were obviously a top notch research team on top of that. He suspected that they used magic and vampire abilities in a lot of their work, but he wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not. Needless to say, by the end of the day, he was looking forward to getting answers at lunch on Saturday, and just hoped he would be in any shape mentally and emotionally to attend Bonnie big birthday party that night.

Chapter Text

Damon was a bit surprised when Stefan called to firm up plans for Saturday lunch, but went with it. Stefan was invited to their apartment lest they risk ending up with a public scene, and Sheila would be there as well as something like a mediator and/or magical support. Which would include silencing the apartment before they started so any yelling didn’t give neighbors dangerous information. And to save her the trip, she just stayed with Damon and Enzo that night, sharing their bed as she did regularly, though rarely slept over. They ordered pizza to be delivered just before Stefan was supposed to arrive, and made sure they had plenty of bourbon, so they were ready for the knock on the door.

Once they were all seated and eating with an awkward silence settled over the room, Damon broke it by asking, “Did you just plan to sit here silently all day or were we going to talk?”

“I don’t understand,” Stefan sighed.

“What is you don’t understand, mate?” Enzo asked.

“Any of it. Why you’ve done anything you’ve done if it’s not just to make me miserable,” Stefan said confusedly.

“How can you think I’m trying to give you an eternity of misery when we’ve seen each other three times in a century and a half?” Damon countered with his own question.

“You mean other than the fact that it’s what you promised me?” Stefan asked pointedly.

“Oh for the love of god!” Damon threw his hands in the air. “One statement, said in the heat of fully justified anger is the one thing you believe. Despite the fact that I’ve said the exact opposite a hundred times before and since.”

“Every time we see each other, it all blows up in my face,” Stefan added.

“Might want to consider whose fault that is, mate,” Enzo scoffed.

“Why don’t we start from the beginning then and see exactly whose face things blow up in,” Damon said bitterly. “In nineteen twelve I was trying to /help/ you. Your diet isn’t at all healthy and you were a sitting duck to the very old vampire in the area. I was worried about you.”

“I can’t drink human blood, Damon. You should know that,” Stefan argued.

“That’s bullshite,” Enzo scoffed. “We’re /made/ for human blood. There’s no such thing as a vampire who can’t drink it.”

“You think it’s easy for any of us to learn control? Especially after letting it go for a while?” Damon asked incredulously. “Even for a new vampire who doesn’t have bad habits to break it takes days. For a vampire whose spend a year binging, it’ll be ten times harder. For a vampire whose spent a century denying himself the thing his body craves, it would be even worse.”

“You don’t understand, Damon. You don’t understand the burning hunger that human blood gives me,” Stefan shook his head.

“How about this then,” Damon knew that this argument was coming and had a plan with Sheila already for it. “Let Sheila switch our perceptions of hunger. I’ll feel your hunger and you’ll feel mine. And then you’ll see that that burning hunger is the same thing the rest of us have.”

“Okay, sure. Fine. Switch it then. And you’ll be the one to see. It’s impossible to fight as a ripper,” Stefan said stubbornly.

Sheila was prepared for the spell so it only took a few minutes to cast. “I don’t feel any different,” Damon said smugly.

“Because there’s not any blood here,” Stefan pointed out.

“One sec,” Enzo got up and headed for the freezer where he pulled out their four emergency blood bags and handed out two to each of them. When Stefan’s eyes went wide at the ones in his hand, Enzo just shrugged. “If you have Damon’s hunger, and there is a difference, then you should be able to handle it while he’s the one struggling. If there’s not a difference then it was all in your head to begin with.”

Stefan bit his lip nervously, but was ready to put his money where his mouth was. And he did desperately miss the taste of human blood. This might be his only chance to drink it safely. He opened the bag and took a sip, and then immediately sucked it down followed by the second one. “It didn’t work. The spell didn’t work. I’m still a ripper,” he said miserably. And he broke his diet.

“No, Stefan. The hunger you feel is the same thing we all feel,” Damon told him as he sedately and comfortably drank his blood bags. “You could control it if you wanted to. As I tried to prove back in nineteen twelve. If I’d known you weren’t even going to try, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“I did /try/ Damon,” Stefan snapped.

“No, you didn’t,” Damon scoffed. “Like I said, it wasn’t easy for any of us. I underestimated how much your half-starved state would affect you. It was one stupid setback and I /told/ you that. That we could keep trying. That I would help you get there.”

“And how many people would die while I was trying?” Stefan shot back.

“A hell of a lot less than a ripper on a binge which is a constant risk when you deny your body what it needs,” Damon countered.

“We are predators. This is how we’re made. It’s what we are. We can channel that, and control it to some degree, but we can’t change who we are and accidents are a way of life. Humans kill people accidentally too, you know. There are ways to cut down on those accidents though.”

“Ways that I would have helped you with if you hadn’t run off and called me a monster the second we had a setback,” Damon said bitterly.

“Like when I was finally rescued from a secret society that tortured vampires after almost forty years on that lab table being torn apart, my control was all over the place. Damon didn’t let me go out and feed without him there to pull me back until I was able to do it myself.”

“You were…but…I didn’t think places like that really existed,” Stefan asked horrified.

“Oh they do. Where do you think I met your brother? He was my cellmate for five years,” Enzo said pointedly. “Until he thought I died in our escape attempt.”

“Th-that’s why…you turned it off for so long…”

“Yes. Because I thought the love of my life died because I failed to save him. And then, when I did get my humanity back, I came back here to teach so I could torture myself with those memories, only to find out that I hadn’t wiped out that plague on humanity like I thought I did. And worse, that Enzo was still there after all that time.”

“But then you stayed here after,” Stefan said confusedly.

“I found that I loved teaching and I loved the opportunities I got because of it to travel the world to different dig sites. And I had a friend here in one of my students,” Damon gave Sheila an amused look.

“And once I went on that first trip with them, I found a love for archaeology too, so I went to school and joined their team,” Enzo added.

“And you don’t think it’s…I don’t know…unfair to use your advantages to set yourself above the humans in the field?” Stefan asked.

“I don’t think you understand how this field works, or how we work within it,” Sheila made her foray into the conversation. “Of the fifty-seven research trips we’ve taken, we’ve only actually discovered six of the sites. Once the discovery team has finished with a site, other teams can apply to take a look with a different perspective. Every site we’ve published papers on, have a dozen other teams that have done the same. The only advantage we have is in how fast we can get through, and how many people we need for different specialties, neither of which have any bearing on standing.”

“Like how other teams might need different language specialists for different sites, but the vampire abilities allow us to learn the languages we need in advance of going. Or other teams might need more people specialized in different things, where we can have multiple specialties,” Enzo clarified.

“We study the past, Stefan. There’s nothing groundbreaking there that we’re taking credit for that other people should. It’s all academic,” Damon added.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes sense,” Stefan said, conundrum on that subject resolved. “But back to the blood issue…I still feel like I’m going out of control.”

“I know. And you will until you get steady on the human blood,” Damon told him. “Your body is craving nutrients that it’s not getting. Which is going to make those cravings that much more intense until they’re satisfied. Which is what sends you into a binge. Then that binge is seen as proof that you can’t learn control and becomes a psychological issue and a vicious cycle. You don’t learn control because you don’t /think/ you can.”

Stefan had to admit that it made sense. He could see how that could happen. And now that he had the proof that he was no different than any other vampire in that regard, maybe he could do it. But there was still the fact that he couldn’t just stop believing Lexi after so long. Not without actual proof that she didn’t have his best interests at heart. Which was why he had to figure out whether his brother had been trying to hurt him for so long or not. That got his mind back on track and he asked, “What about forty-two? When you promised to come with me, got my hopes up for weeks, just to abandon me at the station and even send your bag along to rub it in?”

Chapter Text

“I was there, Stefan,” Damon said seriously. “I was at the station, saw you standing out on the platform and was about to go join you, but as soon as I put my bag with the others your little friend ambushed me. From the moment I suggested going along, she demanded that I not, but I didn’t listen. I cared more about you than I did her. Until she went into this whole thing about how selfish I was being, and how if I really cared about you, I would leave. How being around me would just drive you off the rails again and I needed to think about someone other than myself. That no matter how much I just wanted my brother back, I needed to do what was best for you. I figured, at that point, she knew you better than I did, so I was just gonna go out and tell you that and say goodbye, but she wouldn’t let me do that either. Said it would make it too hard for you to let go. She promised to tell you goodbye for me and explain why I wasn’t going.”

“No. No, I don’t believe you. She wouldn’t. I mean…she was the one trying to get me to make peace with you to begin with,” Stefan shook his head in denial.

“Probably waiting for him to ‘screw up’ again like in nineteen twelve so she could ‘rescue’ you from him,” Enzo said bitterly, having gone through the psychology of that with Damon many times while in the cells. “And when he didn’t, she had to take matters into her own hands and sabotage it herself.”

“H-how do I know you’re telling the truth?” Stefan asked with narrowed eyes.

“Because in addition to a silencing ward, I also put a truth ward on this room before you arrived,” Sheila had just been waiting for him to ask that question. “No one in here can speak anything but the truth, or what they believe the truth to be. Not much point in discussing things if accusations of lies will be flying around now is there.”

Stefan opened and closed his mouth a few times as that sunk in, and he even replayed the conversation up to that point in his head, taking it all in with that context. That, rather than wonder whether to believe them, he had no choice but to do so. And then followed the crushing disappointment that Lexi really had been manipulating him all along. “Did you really leave her on a rooftop to burn in the sun when she came to help you in seventy-seven or was that another lie to justify giving up?”

“No, that was true,” Damon admitted. “But there’s a little context you should consider. First of all, my humanity was still off then. Which means, by her own rules and yours, it can’t count against me. Secondly, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it had to have been a setup. First, the fact that she let me seduce her into sleeping with me. Then…what vampire do you know without a daylight ring, that could ever relax enough to actually fall asleep on a rooftop shortly before the sun would come up? That’s the sort of thing that would so deeply ingrained after so long that it shouldn’t have been possible. Finally, I was up and down for hours, reinforcing that stairwell door. What vampire do you know, with our senses, that could possibly be that heavy of a sleeper to not notice that?”

“Yeah, you’re right. That doesn’t make sense,” Stefan frowned. “She made it sound like you dragged her up there, threw her in the sun, and then locked the door behind her, but…even then…it shouldn’t have been hard for her to just break down the door.” He’d never considered that.

“Which she had to have actually done at some point or she would have been ash,” Damon added.

“Did she even try to help you at all?” Stefan asked miserably as he put his head in his hands.

“I don’t know. She definitely never used torture like she said was the only way with you. But it did end up working in the end. By the time I got back to my apartment after that, it all came slamming back into me,” Damon shrugged.

“When we were kids, and you were taking the blame for everything I did wrong…that wasn’t just because you were an attention-seeker and trying to outshine me like she convinced me of, was it?” Stefan sighed.

“No. It was so that I could be the one to get the beatings from Father so you wouldn’t have to,” Damon said bluntly, beyond caring about protecting his brother from that knowledge.

“And when you abandoned me at Mother’s funeral…it wasn’t just to hurt me, was it?”

“No. It was because I chickened out. I offered to do the eulogy in a fit of pique with the intent of blasting her publicly for her neglect and lack of protection and even throwing me under the bus when /she/ did something wrong too. By the time the day rolled around, I thought better of it, but then had nothing planned, so I panicked and ran,” Damon explained.

“And all the times that you took time with me, taught me, helped me with homework, tucked me in at night, all that…it wasn’t just to manipulate me into looking up to you,” Stefan was sure now, but wanted Damon to know all the things that Lexi put into his head. “Wh-when you left, she twisted everything around. She used the fact that you’d abandoned me again to convince me that it was just who you were.”

“I left because I couldn’t stand there and watch you tortured. She kept trying to convince me that it was the only way, and I kept refusing until I found that little party of yours. At that point, I would have done anything to save you. But I still couldn’t stay there and watch. On my way out, I begged her to just help you. Whatever it took. If I’d known what she would really do…”

“I’m sorry, brother,” Stefan looked up with tears in his eyes. The first time he’d called Damon ‘brother’ since their fight in ninety-four. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve said and everything I’ve done for the last hundred and forty-five years. I…I don’t blame you for being done with me and if you want, I’ll never bother you again. I mean…I don’t want to leave Elena, so we’ll probably still see each other, but…but we can just pretend the other doesn’t exist if you want. I deserve that.”

“Stef, stop,” Damon put a hand on his brother’s shoulder to stop his teary babbling. “That’s not what I want. All I’ve ever wanted was my little brother back. I was just done trying to fight for it after being kicked in the teeth every time I tried. If you’re really, truly sorry, and you actually understand how wrong you’ve been…how could I not take you back? You’re my brother. Eternity is far too long to hold a grudge.” The fact that Stefan had basically been brainwashed against him by way of torture and control when he was barely more than a kid definitely made a difference. Damon had no idea all the ways that Lexi had twisted him up until now.

“R-really? You’ll give me another chance?” Stefan asked with bright happy eyes.

Damon couldn’t help the laugh that pulled from him at how much Stefan looked like a little kid who was just given their favorite gift on Christmas morning. “Yes. I will. But know this, brother. If I ever see Lexi Branson’s face again, one of us won’t walk away alive.”

“That’s if I don’t get her first,” Stefan felt the need to say, heart completely hardened against the evil bitch that nearly destroyed his relationship with his brother and kept them apart for a century and a half. “So…you’re a teacher then? All three of you?” he asked, wanting to get to know them all. Damon especially, but Enzo and Sheila were Damon’s family too, so he wanted to know them just as much.

They ended up sitting around and chatting all afternoon until Enzo was the one to point out, “If you don’t go, you’re gonna be late to Bonnie’s party.”

“Oh crap,” Stefan noticed the time. “You’re not coming?” he asked confused.

“This is her friend party. We’re ‘grown-up uncles’ and thus ‘uncool’ to attend,” Damon chuckled. “We took her out for a nice show and a fancy dinner the day after the pageant for her birthday.”

“Oh. Right. Okay,” Stefan said amusedly. “I guess I’ll see you later then?” Part of him was afraid that all this was a dream and as soon as he walked out that door it would be over.

“You know where we live now, mate,” Enzo told him as he got up to clean up, and then was surprised to be grabbed in a hug.

“Thank you,” Stefan told him, having gotten the impression, more than once, that Damon wouldn’t be giving him another chance if not for the influence of his husband who clearly valued family above all.

“Anytime, kid,” Enzo slapped his back companionably.

Damon got up then, expecting a hug himself if Enzo got one, and he was right. When Stefan hugged him, he hugged his brother back just as tightly, a few tears stinging his eyes at the long overdue gesture. “I love you, little brother.”

“Love you too, big brother,” Stefan said back, voice choked with emotion. “I promise I’ll do better from now on.”

“You better,” Damon said warningly. He wouldn’t be so forgiving again. Brother or not, if Stefan turned on him again, he was done for good. Even Sheila got a hug from Stefan on his way out and she started taking down the extra wards on the place as soon as Stefan was gone. There were still the standard wards that she’d put up long ago, but the silencing ward and the truth ward were gone now.

Chapter Text

Stefan was more than a little on edge during Bonnie’s party, as was noticed by the three girls who knew his secrets, but he brushed off their concern. That little taste of human blood just pushed him wanting more. And there were so many humans packed in there that his control was threatening to slip. Which was why he left the party as soon as it was polite to do so, and went to a blood bank. He just needed more was all. Those two bags were just enough to wet his whistle. He could do this. Now that he knew it was all in his head, he would be fine. That was his thought until he woke up the next morning on the floor of the boarding house basement, surrounded by empty blood bags, and nursing a hangover the likes of which he’d never imagined.

He just laid there groaning for a long while, trying to get his head to stop spinning and pounding so he could even /think/ of what to do next. There was only one thing that came to mind though, so he fished around in his pockets to find his phone. He knew now that he needed help, and there was only place he thought he might get it. He didn’t even realize that it was only four in the morning until the sleepy voice on the other end muttered, “Sup Stef?”

“I’m sorry to wake you up,” Stefan winced, which made him groan at the pain of it. “I-I need your help.”

“What’s wrong and where are you?” Damon was completely awake now, as was Enzo.

“I’m at the boarding house. In the basement. I-I lost control. On blood bags thankfully, but…I don’t think I can do this alone,” he admitted.

“We’re on the way,” Damon told him, glad that it was Sunday which meant there wasn’t any worry about missed classes.

By the time Damon and Enzo got there, a little before five, Stefan still hadn’t managed to get up yet. “Bloody Hell,” Enzo’s eyes widened at the number of blood bags that Stefan was surrounded by. “Did you drink the whole blood bank?”

“Not so loud,” Stefan groaned, holding his head.

“Well…I guess we know now that vampires /are/ susceptible to blood hangovers,” Damon said wryly. But softly before turning to damage control. “First things first, when you got the blood, what did you compel them for?”

“Um…to give me the blood. Why?” Stefan asked confused. Why were they asking him to think right now? Didn’t they realize he was suffering here?

“Which blood bank?” Enzo asked wearily.

“Mystic Falls Hospital,” Stefan answered. Where else would he go when that one was right there?

“I’ll take care of the lush if you’ll cover the blood bank,” Damon suggested.

“Was already planning on it, love,” Enzo said, stealing a kiss before heading out. Of course he had to make it a hospital blood bank, which would be so much harder. Maybe an emergency at another nearby hospital that needed all the blood. Actual blood banks that supplied multiple places they could just put through paperwork as a private hospital.

Once Enzo headed out, Damon leaned down and picked Stefan up, throwing him over his shoulder, and took him upstairs to lay him down on the couch. He drew all the curtains closed to reduce the light coming in, and then poured him a glass of bourbon. “Not sure if this’ll help, but it can’t hurt,” he said amusedly as he put it in his brother’s hand.

“You’ve never been blood drunk before?” Stefan couldn’t help but ask as he took a sip.

“A little bit yeah, but not to that degree,” Damon snorted. “Our healing should have it passing soon enough at least.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do to speed it up?” Stefan asked miserably.

“Well I suppose I could bleed you out and see if that gets rid of some of the excess, but that seems a bit extreme,” Damon joked.

“Let’s try it,” Stefan immediately agreed.

Damon huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Nope. You did the crime, you gotta do the time, little brother,” he patted Stefan’s shoulder.

“You just want to give me an eternity of misery,” Stefan tried for his own joke. But then realized it might be a bit too soon for that. “I was just…”

“I know,” Damon cut him off amusedly. “It was funny.”

Stefan was just feeling well enough to try and sit up about the time Enzo came back. “I got the hospital handled, they’re getting another emergency shipment of blood by noon, and we’ll just have to hope they don’t run out before then.”

“How do you usually do the blood banks then?” Stefan asked confusedly. Since they had blood in their apartment, he assumed that they did.

“Well first of all, we don’t subsist entirely on bagged blood. While it’s not missing as much key nutrition as animal blood, with the way it’s treated, it’s still missing some. They’re good for snacks, but not much else,” Damon told him.

“We do keep a stock on hand for emergencies though and, as your brother said, for snacks when things come up and we don’t get a chance for a real meal,” Enzo said. “For those, we’re registered at nearby blood banks as a private hospital, compelled paperwork all in place, so we just need to go in and pick up when we need a refill.”

“Just going in and taking results in holes in inventory, questions raised, security beefed up, even people getting fired for handing it over,” Damon told him. “We’ll teach you how to work the system, but for the time being, once you’re dried out a little more, we need to get you a live meal asap.”

“I-I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Stefan said fearfully.

“Stef…little brother,” Damon put both his hands on his brother’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Trust me,” he said seriously. “I’ll be better prepared for your reaction this time.”

“And you’ll have backup. I’ll be there too,” Enzo promised.

Stefan took a few deep steadying breaths, knowing that this was the moment that would make or break everything. Could he put his trust in his brother after everything in the past. “O-okay. I-I trust you,” he said shakily.

“Then tonight we’ll take a little trip into the city and get you fed,” Damon nodded, graciously. “Do you want to see if Abby and Henry will come along for some extra insurance?”

Stefan considered that for a moment before shaking his head. “No. No, this time, I want to be with just my brothers,” he decided. “If two of you can’t stop me, four won’t be any better.”

Enzo grinned at being called a brother, and reached out to squeeze Stefan’s shoulder. “We’ve got your back, kid.”

“Henry’s the one from the tomb right? He went to the pageant with Bonnie’s mom? Are they a thing or did he just want to go and needed a date?” Stefan asked curiously, needing to get his mind on anything but blood.

“That’s him, yeah. We fought together in the civil war. I was his commanding officer,” Damon told him.

“And saved his life a few times, I heard?” Stefan wondered if he would get those stories.

“We all saved each other’s asses on the battlefield more than once,” Damon brushed it off.

“That’s how it usually is on the front lines,” Enzo nodded, knowing that Stefan’s only experience with war was driving ambulances. While he saw plenty of action, he wasn’t actually fighting and depending on his brothers in arms to keep him alive.

“I thought you were a fighter pilot?” Stefan asked him.

“I was in the second war. In the first, I was on the ground,” Enzo told him.

“I didn’t realize you were in both world wars,” Stefan said surprised.

“I was turned in nineteen oh three, abandoned by my sire, so I had to figure it all out for myself. I had no idea what to do with myself, and a newfound instinct to kill, so I figured the best thing to do was to channel it into something good. I probably would have joined up with whatever wars there were when I got out of that hellhole too if your brother hadn’t shown me a better way.”

“Yeah, I can understand that,” Stefan said sympathetically, accepting more proof that vampires could be good people too. Enzo was clearly one of the best judging by that outlook. “How is Henry doing since the tomb?”

“He’s doing well. Took him a few weeks after such a long starvation to learn to feed safely and humanely again and get his control settled, but he got there. And then hit it off with Abby and they’ve been going strong ever since,” Damon answered.

After a bit more small talk, Stefan brought up a subject he’d been thinking about all day. “I was wondering…what do you two think about the idea of moving in here? I mean…it’s your house and all and it’s not that far of a commute to the school. Sheila and Abby do it after all.

“I don’t know, mate. We’ll think about it,” Enzo said after exchanging a look with Damon. “We appreciate the offer though.”

Chapter Text

They figured Stefan was good enough for a live snack by that evening and Damon and Enzo took him out to eat. He wouldn’t need a full meal for quite a while after his little binge, but that might prove to be a good thing. He wouldn’t be as hungry in general this way, so might find it easier to stop. Not that it was easy by any means as they found when Damon had to pull Stefan off the first one, with him fighting all the way. But the guy walked away just fine. A little woozy, but just fine. While Stefan was disheartened by how bad that had gone, the fact that Damon proved that he could and would stop him gave him the strength to try again and that time went a little better. They stopped him after two that night and then Stefan got to watch them eat and see how much easier it was for them with practice. They ate one at a time, of course, so that the other could focus on making sure Stefan didn’t lose it during the process.

Stefan did get particularly twitchy while they were eating and that delicious smelling blood was flowing, but he was able to hold himself back from trying to get at it. It was just when he was actually drinking it that it was so hard to stop. Damon assured him that as his body got used to the idea that it wouldn’t be cut off again, it would get easier. He just had to train himself to the good habits. And Damon and Enzo would be right there with him, helping him all the way. Naturally, Stefan was forbidden from feeding alone, but Damon also asked him if he felt like he needed to take some time off school in the meantime, but Stefan, after a moment’s thought, said that he was fine. If it was still football season, it might have been a different story, or he would have had to quit the team, but regular school would be fine. He did worry about being with Elena though, but they just suggested that he talk to her. Explain what he was doing and why he would be struggling for a while and to keep their physical relationship on a simmer until he was steadier.

They did decide to stay at the boarding house that night, and just go home to change before their Monday morning classes. To stay closer after Stefan’s first taste of live blood in so long, just in case. For that reason, they took the VIP room that was just down the hall from the stairs to Stefan’s attic room. One of the few other rooms in the place with a balcony. When Stefan still seemed steady in the morning, they left him be and told him they’d be by that evening for another feeding trip. They would be getting him two people a day instead of four every two to three days until he was steadier. Stefan waited until they left before he got ready to go himself, texting Elena that he wouldn’t be at school that day and would see her tomorrow. He had something else he wanted to do today.

Stefan had looked up the class schedules on the Pontier College website and wanted to see what his brother was like in front of a classroom. His fond memories of Damon’s teaching style had been so long ago when Damon was barely more than a kid himself, so he wanted to see how they’d evolved. While Damon’s classes were mostly labs on the doctoral level, he did keep the undergraduate Introduction to Anthropology class which was on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Then he would check out Enzo’s Archaeological History class that was right after that. If he felt like sticking around, he might even hit Abby Bennett’s Mythological Sociology class after lunch, wanting a chance to talk to her too since he’d gotten some time with Sheila Bennett on Saturday. That and Sheila’s class on Monday afternoons was an advanced lecture that would likely be way over his head.

Stefan had been hoping to surprise his brother, and judging by Damon’s raised eyebrow when he walked into the class, he’d succeeded. He wasn’t sure if he would be welcome though so he hesitated at the door, until Damon waved a hand for him to take a seat. It was only a few minuted before the class started and Stefan was enraptured. It was a master class on how to inspire students in an under-appreciated field of study. He even caught himself participating in the discussion a couple times, but when Damon didn’t seem to mind, he stopped trying to keep his mouth shut. Once the class was over, Stefan held back until everyone else was gone, a few of them stopping to talk to Damon for a moment with a quick question or comment about the class, but once the last one was gone, Stefan walked up. “That was a great class. You really are an amazing teacher.”

“Thanks little brother,” Damon grinned ruffling his hair. “Though I’m pretty sure this isn’t the class you’re supposed to be in this morning,” he teased.

“Not like I’ll miss much in high school,” Stefan snorted amusedly.

“I didn’t realize you were into anthropology,” Damon said as he packed up his papers.

“I’m not. Or at least I wasn’t before this morning,” Stefan chuckled.

“You’d probably appreciate the archaeological side more than the social and cultural side,” Damon told him. “It’s more hands on.”

“Yeah, I probably will. I figured I’d check out Enzo’s class on that next actually. Get a chance to see you both teach,” Stefan told him.

“You better hurry then or you’ll be late. And unlike me, Enzo locks the doors when he starts class,” Damon rushed him off. “He can show you where we have lunch after class if you want.”

“Thanks, Damon. I’ll be there,” Stefan called back over his shoulder rushing towards Enzo’s class a floor down at the other end of the hallway. Stefan enjoyed that class just as much. Enzo was a very good teacher, though not up to Damon’s caliber. The more interesting subject matter put it about on the same level in Stefan’s mind though. Especially since today’s subject was on the use of engineering in archaeological endeavors. He almost wondered if Enzo chose the subject just for him when he came in, but a glance at the syllabus of the person next to him told him that was the topic for this whole month. By the end of the class, he found himself wondering if he could find a place on his brother’s research team at some point. It was definitely something that he would look into at least. He would do the research on his own though before bringing it up with them. He didn’t want to get their hopes up if he decided against it.

Stefan gave Enzo a similar compliment as class ended, and the expected invitation to lunch at which point they stopped by Damon’s office to pick him up. It was just the three of them going as they explained that Sheila didn’t have any classes until the afternoons on Mondays and Abby didn’t usually eat lunch, preferring to use the time to grade papers. Henry did end up meeting them at the cafe though, and Stefan got the chance to get to know him a bit, and even got some stories about his brother during the war that way, much to Damon’s chagrin as Enzo egged him on. He found himself very glad that they’d managed to get the tomb open anyway just for Henry’s sake. He wondered if anyone could know the guy and not like him. It would be like hating puppies.

Stefan did decide to check out Abby’s class that afternoon, and she was even more surprised than his brothers were to see him, but just motioned him to have a seat. He did find her class interesting, but not overly so, and she was a good teacher, but not even on Enzo’s level, much less Damon’s. That was to be expected though. Teachers like Damon were one in a million. Teachers like Enzo were probably one in a thousand. She was still a good one though, as he told her after class, taking the opportunity to apologize for their past difficulties which she graciously accepted just as her mother had a couple days before. Once he was done there, he headed home. He wouldn’t skip his real school again. He just wanted to see was all. And he would get his homework from Elena and try to get that knocked out before his brother’s showed up for his feeding trip.

Chapter Text

“So, what do you think about the idea of moving into the boarding house?” Enzo asked Damon once they were home after school.

“I was a bit dubious before today, but I think I kinda want to now,” Damon said thoughtfully, laying his head in his husband’s lap.

“I was thinking the same,” Enzo nodded, running a hand through Damon’s hair. “It would make it easier to help him with his control issues if we were closer at hand too.”

“There is that,” Damon agreed. “You know…I’ve never actually stayed there before.”

“I think it’s high time you got a chance to live in the house you had built then, don’t you think?” Enzo chuckled, leaning down for a kiss. “Now that you can have something of your family back.”

“Yeah. That is a plus,” Damon smiled. All that time wishing for nothing more than to have his brother back, and he finally got it. “I want to keep our apartment for a while though. Just in case things end up blowing up in our faces later on.”

“Yeah, we should,” Enzo agreed, remembering how Damon had thought he was making progress in ninety-four before everything blew up. But then, Stefan had admitted that the reason he got pissed was seeing the bites on Gail and assuming Damon was feeding on her while she was seven months pregnant. Now, Stefan understood their feeding practices, and knew better than to think he would risk something like that. Presumably. “I was thinking we’ll keep it until after our summer trip and then get the premium price for selling it before the next school year starts if all is still going well?”

“That’s that I was thinking too,” Damon nodded, catching Enzo’s hand for a kiss as it brushed down his cheek. “And we’ll still have the option to stay here some nights when we want to.”

“Or use it for parties,” Enzo chuckled.

“Or that,” Damon said amusedly. “Should we go ahead and pack up then before we head to Mystic Falls to pick Stefan up for a feeding trip?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Enzo agreed, leaning down for one more kiss before they got up and used vampire speed to get their packing done. They weren’t taking /everything/. Just most of their clothes and books. Their furniture wouldn’t fit the decor in the boarding house anyway and if and when they sold the apartment, they would sell the furniture with it. All their little odds and ends could go later, once they were more committed.

With so much stuff, and the fact that they weren’t planning on coming back, they were taking both cars, and headed ‘home’.

Stefan met them outside and beamed brightly when he saw them driving separately, and the boxes and bags in the backseat. “Does this mean you’re moving in?”

“That’s the plan. Assuming the offer’s still open,” Damon told him.

“Yeah. Absolutely. Of course,” Stefan told him. “Did you want the room that you had last time or the family suite?”

“The room we had last time is fine, but maybe we could take the one next to it too and modify it into a sitting room and office,” Enzo asked/said.

“It’s your house,” Stefan shrugged amusedly as he went to help them bring stuff in. “There’s plenty of space in the attic for anything you don’t need from in there, and spare furniture of other kinds too, so just have at.”

“First though, once we get our stuff in, we’re gonna go eat,” Damon told him. That feeding trip went a little bit better. Stefan was still not doing very well about stopping on his own, but he was fighting less when they had to intervene and calming quicker from the bloodlust. It was progress, which helped Stefan from getting discouraged. As long as he could see that it was getting better, he could believe that it would keep getting better.

Once they got back to the boarding house, they ended up sitting around with drinks for a while before they went up to work on their new rooms. Vampire speed and strength came in handy for moving furniture and the like and it was no time at all before they had the room next to theirs set up with a nice seating area, two desks in an office area, and a tall bookshelf against the wall between them. Not impeding their view of each other, of course. They would finish the unpacking the next day when they got home.

As time went on, they got more comfortable in the boarding house, especially after the successfully made the council forget about the supernatural. The size of the boarding house made it much easier for people to stop by whenever, and all three Bennetts and Henry were frequent visitors, along with Elena and Caroline who came by mostly for Stefan, but didn’t mind chatting with Damon and Enzo either. Come April, Henry moved into the Bennett house which meant they were all living in Mystic Falls now. Henry’s apartment had just been rented rather than purchased like Damon and Enzo’s was, so it was a simple matter of moving his stuff out and canceling the lease. Though the latter would wait until June to avoid paying the penalty. In a college town, those things were set for the school year more often than not.

Stefan did start looking into the possibility of joining the expedition team, and found that he could get his bachelor’s in engineering…again, and still go for a graduate degree in archeology to specialize in the engineering aspect. Though he was considering doing the whole thing through archeology and just taking a few engineering classes as electives to catch up on the changes since he last studied engineering. It might be nice to do something different this time. Bonnie had always been planning to go into the ‘family business’, but Elena and Caroline found it fascinating too. They always had ever since Bonnie started telling them all about the trips she took and the amazing things they’d found and learned and they’d already applied and been accepted to Pontier college for the fall.

That led to the four doctors deciding to make an offer, that they set all the teens down at the end of April to do so. “As you all know, Bonnie’s been coming to our research trips since she was ten. Which we could get away with because her mother or grandmother was with her on all of them,” Damon started.

“But now that you’re all eighteen, or will be Elena, we can get away with bringing you all as ‘assistants’,” Enzo added. They would just need to leave two weeks later than planned to wait for Elena’s birthday as the youngest of the group. “You’ll have to work, and we’ll teach along the way, but it’ll give you a chance to see what we do first hand and help you decide if it’s what you want to do with your lives.”

“Yes, yes yes!” Caroline was the first to agree eagerly. She’d always been so jealous of Bonnie getting to go on such awesome trips and hung onto her every word when she got back from them. She found ancient cultures fascinating and definitely planned on either cultural anthropology like Damon or maybe sociology.

“Where are we going?” Elena, the ever practical, asked curiously.

“We were actually planning to check out an area in Greece. See if we can make a new discovery,” Abby told them.

“The area we want to check has been unapproachable for a long time. There are stories of anyone getting close getting a sudden feeling of terror. Those who continue anyway end up with random accidents that prevent them from going any further. There have been a few deaths, we won’t lie to you, but they’re usually people who push through the other effects,” Sheila explained.

“To us, that means some sort of wards. Everyone who’s encountered that effect has been human. We’re hoping that, as magical beings, we’ll either be immune to them or able to beat them,” Abby finished.

“But Caroline and I are human too,” Elena pointed out.

“But you’ll be with us,” Damon told her. “Most older area wards like that will allow those who are approved to bring others in. Designed for things like trusted aides, human spouses, even the sick or injured coming for healing.”

“If we can get through, the changes are good that we’ll be able to take you through as well. If we can’t, priority will be on getting them down, resetting them, or modifying them in some way regardless,” Enzo said.

“Worst case scenario, if we can get through and can’t find a way to get you through, we’ll just leave someone back with you while the rest of us see if there’s a way to control it from the inside,” Sheila promised.

“How do you know the ward isn’t just protecting people? Like some native population or something?” Stefan felt the need to ask.

“It’s possible, though not likely,” Abby answered. “There hasn’t been any sign of people’s involvement. All the accidents have been from things like tripping and falling, or sliding down a ravine or things of the like. Nothing that could be people involved, nor has anyone who made it that far reported seeing people or any signs of current civilization.”

“If we’re wrong, and there are people there, then we’ll need to do some fast talking, but that’s not uncommon,” Damon told them. “Dealing with any natives, and foreign governments too, is a necessary part of the job.”

“You remember that time we were chased by pygmies in the rainforest when they took offense to our presence?” Enzo asked amusedly.

“You couldn’t outrun them?” Caroline asked confusedly, knowing how fast vampires were.

“Sheila couldn’t, and we weren’t leaving her behind,” Damon snickered. “Which was a good thing since she took a dart to the ass and had to be carried the rest of the way.”

“It was not to my ass,” Sheila smacked him. “It was my thigh.”

“Potato, potahto,” Enzo grinned and got smacked for it too, which set off reminiscing about past trips for the rest of the day. Everyone was eager to go along on the trip though. Even after hearing about all the things that could go wrong. The fact that they almost always managed to smooth things over in the end gave them faith that they’d be able to do the same thing there. Either way, it sounded like a fun adventure, led by experienced adventurers.

Chapter Text

The group set their departure date for July first, a little later than they usually set out for the summer trip, but they would still have plenty of time. They planned to be back by August fifteenth at the latest, giving those heading into college, which included Henry, time to get registered for their classes and get books, supplies, and anything else they needed. They might be back earlier than that depending on what they found though. They always scheduled extra time for these trips that averaged about a month long. All those who hadn’t been before were bouncing out of their skins with excitement as they packed up to leave, made easier with Sheila’s magic that Bonnie was now helping with. They were able to keep much more in their bags than one would think that way, which also meant taking fewer people along just to carry equipment and field kits. One of the many reasons they were able to avoid larger teams. While they did usually take along at least a few doctoral candidates, they didn’t always, and this was one of the times that they declined to do so. The magical nature of what they were looking for made it more difficult.

Henry and Stefan had learned ancient Greek in advance of the trip, but Caroline and Elena, without the enhanced mental abilities of vampirism, would have to rely on translations. Bonnie had grown up learning ancient Greek since that was their family magic. Their plane flew into Thessaly and they got a bus as close as it could get. There would still be a lot of hiking though, with the two humans and two witches carrying the lightest bags. Mostly the clothes and tents. The vampires carried everything else, which definitely came in handy when they reached the climbing portions. Skolio peak of the Olympus mountains had a slope almost like a wall. It was at the top of that wall that expeditions started going wonky. The experienced climbers kept close watch on the newbies as they headed up.

As soon as they stepped onto the flatter area at the top of the wall, Elena shuddered and said, “We need to go back. We shouldn’t be here,” in a fearful tone.

“Yeah, this was a really bad idea,” Caroline agreed, almost looking like she was ready to jump down the cliff.

Sheila and Bonnie reached out and grabbed their hands, noticing them relaxing immediately. “Better?” Bonnie asked.

“Yeah. Much,” Elena let out a heavy breath.

“I guess I get the ‘terror’ part of the wards now,” Caroline said wryly. “The rest of you aren’t affected?”

“Nope. Looks like our hypothesis was correct. Magic can pass just fine. And we can take humans with us,” Damon said relieved. There had been some question whether the vampires would be able to pass too or not, but since they were still made up of the same spirit magic that witches were, just turned inward, and vampires didn’t exist before these wards did, it was likely that they’d be fine. Now they knew for sure.

“We shouldn’t need to do anymore climbing,” Sheila told them. “But if we do, you two can go tandem with Damon and Enzo.” They were the most experienced climbers of the vampires who would be able to hold their weight easier.

“Do we need to hold hands the rest of the way?” Elena asked curiously.

“Probably at least until we reach our destination. Just to be safe,” Abby told them as Sheila passed Caroline off to her so she could get some diagnostics of the wards done. “The fact that those who can fight through the outer wards are caught by inner wards, mean that we don’t want to take chances.”

“Yes, there are certainly multiple layers to the wards, and this one is a permeating ward, meaning it will affect you at least until we cross the second layer in a hundred yards. Possibly beyond that, but I’ll need to do another check when we get there,” Sheila explained as they started walking.

“Do you think you can figure out the wardstone if we can find it to key them in?” Bonnie asked hopefully. With wards like this, there had to be a wardstone. Probably a series of them connected to a single master stone.

“Most likely, yes,” Abby answered. That would be her and her mother’s job while Damon and Enzo led the exploration of anything else at the site. Ancient Greek magics were like their bread and butter.

Once they passed through the second layer ward, Sheila did another analysis and told them, “The terror ward isn’t active anymore, and the minor expulsion ward is only active for about twenty yards, after which we can drop hands until we reach the next one in another hundred yards, but that’s a kill ward, so we need to be very careful of that one.”

“But we’re sure that one won’t affect vampires or witches either?” Stefan asked worriedly.

“The fact that these first two haven’t, means that magicals are welcomed here. They won’t go back on that in the last ward,” Enzo assured them.

“The purpose of the layered wards of increasing severity is to serve as a warning to turn back. It’s not warning us to turn back, so we can keep going,” Damon added. “And since we’re being allowed to bring Caroline and Elena, that permission will continue too for the same reason.”

“And thanks to Uncle Damon’s glasses, he can see the wards, even though he can’t tell what they do like Grams can, so we won’t hit it on accident,” Bonnie wanted to make sure they knew.

“So there /is/ a reason for the glasses beyond just ‘playing the role’,” Stefan realized, having never gotten around to asking that at the start, when there were so many more important things, and he just got used to them after that.

“They have a few handy enchantments on them,” Damon chuckled. “Enzo and Abby have some too, but I’m the only one that wears them regularly.”

Enzo just smirked, knowing why Damon liked to wear them so much, and decided to clue the others in a bit too. “Professor sexy-specs,” he said fondly, stealing a kiss from his husband.

They stopped before they got to the next ward, and Bonnie and Sheila took Elena and Caroline’s hands again before they stepped through. It had been pretty steep on the way up, but not enough so to need to climb. Not long after that last layer of ward though, they reached what seemed to be the top. Relatively speaking. There was flat rocky land for about a hundred more yards with a raised area in the center. As they got closer they could see that it was about twenty feet high.

“Can we take a break? Please?” Elena asked exhaustedly. They’d stopped for the night before the wall they had to climb, and it was still midmorning, but that long climb followed by walking up a steep incline the length of three football fields and she was ready to drop.

“Why don’t you stay back with the girls Sheila. Get some rest yourself. The rest of us can use vampire speed to circle this raised portion and see if there’s anything interesting about it,” Enzo suggested.

“That would be very much appreciated,” she said wryly. If they hadn’t asked for a rest soon, she would have. At fifty-three years old, she was no spring chicken anymore, even with as great a shape as she was in.

Abby turned to Stefan and Henry and told them, “Remember. Don’t touch /anything/ without clearing it with one of us first. Especially at a magical site like this.”

“We know, sweetheart,” Henry assured her. That had all been gone over multiple times before they even came.

“Abby, Henry, go south and around, Stef, you’re with me and Enzo, circling north,” Damon split them up to cover more ground.

It didn’t take long before Damon, Enzo, and Stefan stopped short when they saw an opening in the rock, almost like a cave. When Stefan started to head for it, Enzo grabbed his arm. “Easy there, mate. Don’t touch anything also means don’t go through any openings.” He then turned to Damon. “You see any magic on the doorway?”

Damon walked around to get a look from every angle, and even got up close without crossing the threshold. “Yeah, there’s definitely magic there, but it looks like a ward rather than a curse or anything.”

“Let me see,” Abby took her glasses out of her pocket as she came up. “I concur. Definitely a ward. Which means we should be able to cross it. Or will at least get a warning before being ripped to shreds if we can’t.”

Damon reached his arms out, one to Enzo and one to Abby. “Be ready to pull me back just in case,” he said as he tried to step through the ward, only to find himself blocked. “Well that didn’t work,” he frowned.

“It doesn’t read like a barrier to me,” Abby frowned and reached out to touch it, only for her hand to go straight through. She grabbed Damon’s hand again with her other one, and then continued on. “It’s letting me through just fine. Let go a minute?”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Abbs,” Enzo said worriedly.

“It won’t hurt me. The magic here feels welcoming, but it also feels like something’s being held back. I need to be completely inside, but don’t want to pull anyone with me yet,” Abby told them. “Trust me.”

“If you say so,” Damon said dubiously and let her hand go so she could pull it inside. They heard the gasp from inside even as it was echoed outside. The entire landscape changed. What were once barren jagged rocks was now a lush green field, though very overgrown. The temperature raised from freezing to comfortable. And they could hear the reactions of Sheila and the girls in the distance that told them the same had happened there too. “Make sure you can come out, Abbs,” Damon wanted to get out of the way first.

“I can,” she said as she stepped out next to them. “It felt like my presence unlocked something. I think we can all go in now. And it’s amazing in there.”

Chapter Text

They found that they were able to walk in now, and were soon joined by Sheila, Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline. They’d rested enough and this would prove to be fascinating and important. When they got there, they found everyone else still looking around in awe, making mental plans about where to start and just taking in the scene. “This is going to be amazing once we get it cleaned up a bit,” Bonnie had the experience to tell, having seen quite a few transformations before.

“I have to concur,” Damon said as he chose a place to start. “Caroline and Elena, you can come help me work on these inner walls. I’ll show you what to do.”

“Stefan, Henry, you can help me start on these pillars,” Enzo told him.

“We’ll start here on this dais,” Sheila directed Bonnie to join her and Abby. “I can almost make out some sort of inscription here.

As Damon pulled out a set of light circular brushes to hand out and started showing them how to gently swirl away the surface dust, Caroline asked, “Why don’t we just use our hands to brush it off?”

“Because smooth walls like this almost always have some form of writing, drawings, pictograms, or something on them. Depending on what they were done with, brushing the dirt away with our hands can smear them,” Damon started the explanation, watching them and correcting their spinning technique with the brushes.

“Like if they were done in chalk or something,” Elena understood.

“Exactly. Then there’s also the chance that whoever did them embedded something like rocks or gems or crystals into whatever they put there that could be knocked loose by a rougher hand,” Damon continued.

“So we brush gently, even if it takes a long time,” Caroline nodded her acceptance.

“It can get tedious sometimes,” Damon said wryly. “But vampire speed does help.” Now that they had it down, he started from the other end of the wall and did the same thing almost faster than they could see.

“Well now I feel useless,” Elena snorted amusedly when he had the rest of the wall done by the time they’d finished two inch strips from as high as they could reach to the floor.

“But we still need to know how to do it,” Caroline was the one to point out.

“Why don’t you girls start on that next wall while I work on recording and translating this one,” Damon told them. They’d get more of a chance to work on it that way now that he had something to start with. He began with taking digital pictures, first of the whole wall and then close ups of different sections, getting the whole thing. Then he took a video which was much quicker, zooming in and panning over it. Different methods could be used to enhance different mediums. The fact that the artwork on the walls was slightly indented meant they would be getting rubbings too, but he would leave that to teach the girls when they were done with the next wall and went ahead and got started on figuring out what it said.

While they were working on the wall, Enzo was teaching Stefan and Henry how to excavate the pillars. “This isn’t nearly as bad as one might expect after thousands of years, probably due to preservation spells of some sort. We still need to be very careful though. The first thing we’re trying to do is get the caked dirt out of the crevices. Use the pick, but go shallow. We don’t want to touch the original material that was used,” he explained, showing him how to do it.

“How do we know how much to get?” Henry asked curiously.

“Once the dirt thins, we’ll be able to tell, and from there we get the brushes,” Enzo told him. “Once we can get a good look at the pillar, we’ll be able to tell a lot about who built this place and when. The why is Damon’s job. Or maybe Sheila and Abby with it being a magical site.”

“And we could figure out how they built things and kept them standing for so long too,” Stefan guessed.

“We might need a little more than one pillar for that, but you’ve got the gist,” Enzo chuckled.

Sheila, Abby and Bonnie were being just as careful cleaning off the dais. There was an inscription that seemed to go all the way around the pedastal that the large statue was on. They were just finishing that up, revealing the entire inscription, when Damon said, still lost in his study of the wall, “You guys are not going to believe this.”

“Don’t tell me this is really Mount Olympus,” Sheila said, the only thing that could have given him that tone. That had been an option of course, given the location, but the idea that they could find the actual home of the gods was crazy even for them. Though, they did suspect that the ‘gods’ were just early witches who were revered by the people, but the point stood.

“What’s left of it, apparently,” Damon told them. “This was apparently the entrance hall/temple with the castle resting on top of it. Where the lesser gods had access to petition the major gods, or could bring humans to do the same. This wall here basically says that they are not to enter the castle above, but are to wait until the gods see fit to attend them. It goes on to start the ‘rules’ for them to remain, which I presume are continued on the next wall since it cuts off mid-sentence.”

“That’s not all,” Enzo chimed in. “This pillar dates to at least eight /million/ years ago.”

“What? That’s impossible,” Abby gasped. “The earliest species of humans only evolved six million years ago. Magic itself has only been around for five /thousand/ years.”

“Let me see,” Sheila motioned him and Stefan out of the way and cast a spell to determine the age of it. If not for the unbelievable result, she would never have doubted Enzo’s expertise, but when her spell confirmed it, she had no choice but to believe it. “It’s true.”

“But…does that mean that the gods lived here even before humans existed?” Bonnie asked incredulously.

“Yes. It does. But it means more than that too,” Damon said, just as shaken by that part of the revelation.

“It means that the ‘gods’ weren’t powerful witches like we thought, but were something very different,” Abby finished before Damon could.

“And likely /very/ powerful, given how long their wards have lasted,” Enzo had to point out.

“And yet their wards are made of the same spirit magic that we wield,” Sheila pointed out.

“Maybe it was the gods that gave magic to humans and created witches?” Bonnie guessed, as Stefan, Elena, Henry, and Caroline were just too gobsmacked about what they were hearing to even contribute to this discussion.

“That has been a theory, albeit a less likely one,” Damon admitted. “Which begs the question of whether the ‘lesser gods’ were just witches or if they were more than that too.”

“Maybe we’ll find something here that can answer that question,” Sheila said as they got back to work, but not for much longer before they called it quits for the day. The vampires were quick to clear an area they could make camp in, not wanting to do so inside the temple unless the weather demanded it, and now that some spells had taken away the cold, they wouldn’t even need a fire to keep warm. Which meant that, while Sheila was passing out the food for herself, Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena, the vampires were putting up the tents.

Thankfully, they had expected that, thanks to the wards, native populations would be difficult to find. The nearest one town near the bottom of the mountain, would take hours even for a vampire to get to. Which meant that they’d decided to do that once a week and stay on blood bags in between. They had plenty of blood bags in a spelled and expanded pack at least and they were passed out once the five tents were up. After dinner, the silencing stones for each tent were passed out by Sheila and the newbies were shown how to work them. With vampire hearing privacy could be a nightmare and now that there were three couples who wouldn’t want to be celibate for as long as six weeks, they were even more necessary.

It wasn’t long after dinner before the three teen girls went to bed, needing more sleep than the vampires and claiming exhaustion after the long day. Elena would be going back and forth between sharing a tent with her best friends and sharing with Stefan. Tonight would be for the three of them though. Sheila wasn’t long after them, in the same boat with the exhaustion and needing more sleep. The vampires stayed up for a while longer before turning in not having any idea, thanks to the silencing stones, that there was trouble afoot. At least, for safeties sake, they were only one way., They could hear what was happening outside, but no one could hear anything going on inside. Not that the hearing would end up that necessary this time either.

Chapter Text

Once they were in their tent, with their silencing field up, the last thing on Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena’s minds was sleep. Their bodies were exhausted, but their minds were racing and they couldn’t resist talking about everything they’d seen and learned and the incredible possibilities that it opened up. It didn’t take long for the inscription around the dais to be mentioned. “What did it say?” Caroline asked Bonnie eagerly.

“It was an incantation to clean the place up and make any repairs,” Bonnie told them.

“Why aren’t we doing that instead of doing it all the hard way then?” Elena asked confusedly.

“Mom and Grams would never cast unfamiliar magic without breaking it down and calculating everything that went into it,” Bonnie rolled her eyes.

“That seems kinda silly when we could get so much more done if we could skip all the cleaning up parts,” Caroline’s brow furrowed.

“You’re really sure that’s what it’s for?” Elena asked.

“That’s what it said. Cleansing and renewal of the building,” Bonnie told them. “They probably didn’t want to deal with having to clean up and fix things all the time with so many people in and out, so they left the spell to do it there where anyone could take care of it.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Caroline nodded. “Why don’t we do it?”

“You’re not serious,” Bonnie asked incredulously.

“Why not? I mean, imagine how happy they’d all be to wake up in the morning and find the place all fixed up,” Elena added.

“Surely they’d forgive you for doing it when they saw the results,” Caroline agreed.

“You have a point,” Bonnie said thoughtfully. And her mom and grams /had/ agreed on the translation of the incantation so she knew she wasn’t mistranslating something. “Okay, lets do it. We’ll wait for everyone else to go to bed, and then go say the incantation and it’ll be a surprise for them in the morning.”

“They’ll probably even let us sleep in after they see what we did and how much work we saved,” Caroline said hopefully.

They stayed up talking a while longer as they waited for everyone else to go to bed, and then for a little longer after that in hopes that it would mean they were either asleep or too distracted by things they didn’t want to think about to notice that they’d gotten up. They could always claim needing to pee if they got caught though. They made it into the temple without getting caught at least and Bonnie used the flashlight to walk around the dais as she read the incantation. As soon as it was done though, she started to question whether it was a good idea. She could feel something that could only be described as something prickling at her magic. Like some sort of judgment or something. She turned to suggest getting out of there, but she didn’t even get the words out before there was a deafening clap of thunder accompanied by a crackle of lightning, and the ground started to shake.

That commotion woke up the rest of the camp who were out of their tent in seconds. Sheila, when no one came out of the girls’ tent, went to check on them, while Damon and Enzo ran inside the structure to check on things there while Abby, Henry, and Stefan tried to take care of the camp and not gape at the sudden storm that had lightning repeatedly striking the mountaintop as the thunder crashed and rolled, shaking the ground with it, but not dropping a spec of rain. It was Damon’s yell of, “Get in here!” that had the rest of them running for the temple/cave as fast as they could. They found Damon and Enzo shielding the girls from the falling dust and dirt and trying to keep them on their feet, but the real sight to see was what was being revealed.

As the dust and dirt fell, it disappeared, revealing the place in gleaming white marble and sparkling gold. It wasn’t until Damon pointed at the back wall that they noticed the doorway glowing with enough magic that it could be seen with the naked eye. The moment she laid eyes on it, Sheila felt the pull towards it. “I need to go through there,” she told them.

“No way. There’s no telling what’s on the other side of that thing,” Enzo shook his head.

“This won’t stop until I do,” Sheila told them in the tone she used when she just ‘knew’ things. “It won’t hurt me.”

“Are you /sure/ mom?” Abby asked worriedly.

“As sure as I’ve ever been about anything in my life,” Sheila told her seriously, and didn’t wait for anyone else to speak before she walked swiftly towards it and into the light. As soon as she stepped through, the storm outside stopped and all was still, but she was just surrounded by a bright light. It was reading her, judging her. She saw flashes of memories skating past her consciousness, all of them relating to the people with her. Like it was judging them as well from her own thoughts. The next thing she knew there was something she could only describe as an explosion and she was waking up in the overgrown field as the sun rose the next morning. And judging by the groans echoing her own, she wasn’t the only one.

“Anyone get the number of that bus?” Damon managed to mutter, not even opening his eyes yet given his headache.

“I don’t know, love, but I’d sure like to have a few words with the drive,” Enzo deadpanned back at him.

“Oh my god…” Stefan gasped, the first to actually open his eyes. “Look!”

“I don’t think I can open my eyes without vomiting,” Elena said miserably. “Just tell us.”

“No. I don’t think I could even begin to describe…just look,” Stefan said in awe.

“Bloody buggering hell!” Enzo not only opened his eyes but proceeded to jump to his feet.

Enzo’s exclamation was enough to get Damon looking too, “You guys are /not/ going to believe this.”

“If this isn’t the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life, I’m going to shove my foot so far up your ass…” Sheila muttered as she got the strength to open her eyes, and all thought of her headache disappeared. “Oh dear heavens.”

“Is that what I think it is?” Henry asked incredulously.

“The home of the gods. The palace of Mount Olympus,” Abby breathed out.

“Bonnie Sheila Bennett! What did you do?!” Sheila rounded on her.

“Um…oops?” Bonnie had no idea what else to say.

“You cast the incantation didn’t you,” Abby asked suspiciously.

“We thought it was just to clean and fix up the area we were in. We wanted to surprise you,” Caroline tried to defend her best friend.

“This, child, is exactly why we don’t cast unknown magic until we can examine it,” Sheila huffed.

“At least we found the castle?” Bonnie said sheepishly.

“And if it brought the gods back with it?” Damon asked pointedly. “Imagine releasing such powerful beings into the world with no idea whether they were benevolent or not.”

“And judging by how bloody the Greek myths are, I’d be more likely to guess not,” Enzo added.

“Oh great. And now it’s raining,” Damon huffed, motioning everyone inside for cover as the downpour increased. It wasn’t until they were taking off their soaked jackets that Enzo noticed, “What’s that on your neck, love?” reaching out to touch the mark that suddenly appeared there.

“You have something too,” Damon pointed out.

“I think we all do,” Sheila said, looking around at everyone else there. “Oh dear…” she suddenly got an idea of what could be happening.

“Do we want to know what you just figured out?” Stefan asked wearily.

“Damon, dear, are you feeling particularly apprehensive right now?” she asked as she touched the inky black lighting bolt on his neck.

“You think?!” he asked incredulously.

“I do believe the rain might be your doing,” she said wryly.

“Why on earth would you think that?” Damon asked confusedly.

“Because that is the symbol of the storm god, Zeus,” she told him. “And yours is Apollo, the god of music, prophecy, and healing,” she told Enzo.

“You’re Athena, mom. Wisdom and knowledge. As if there were any doubt,” Abby told her fondly before turning to Henry. “Yours is Hermes, honey. The god of athletics, trade, and mischief. The messenger god. Also fitting. What’s mine?” she asked, unable to see her own.

“Demeter. Agriculture, harvest, and fertility. Perfect for your love of nature,” Sheila told her. Abby was the best herbalist she’d ever seen and could always identify any plant they encountered in their travels whether she’d seen it before or not. Bonnie, you’re Artemis. The huntress. Goddess of animals.”

“What about us?” Caroline asked eagerly, not knowing what any of the symbols were.

“You have the symbol of the goddess of beauty and love. Aphrodite,” Bonnie told her. “Elena, you’ve got Hestia. Goddess of hearth and home. And Stefan…I don’t know that one,” Bonnie looked to her grandmother for help.

“Hephaestus,” Sheila answered. “The god of building, crafting, and inventing.”

“I still feel like me, though,” Elena pointed out. “Not like I’ve been taken over by some goddess or anything.”

“I don’t think we are the gods themselves. Just that we have their power. A new iteration of them perhaps,” Sheila said thoughtfully, remembering how the light she’d been trapped in had examined her memories of them all.

“At least that means that the gods didn’t likely come back along with the palace,” Abby said relieved. “But it does beg the question…why us?”

“I don’t know, yet,” Sheila said thoughtfully. “But something tells me that any further answers are here somewhere. Or within us, somehow.”

“At least Damon stopped drowning the mountain,” Enzo teased playfully, sensing that they all needed a moment of levity.

“Hmm. I wonder,” Damon cocked his head at his husband and then smirked as a small stormcloud appeared above his head, drenching only him. “What do you know? It works.”

“Maybe we should learn a little more about these powers before we start throwing them around indoors?” Stefan asked amusedly despite his apprehension.

“Spoilsport,” Damon huffed a laugh as he stopped it anyway. He hadn’t been planning to keep it going for long. But once Enzo grabbed him in a searing kiss, holding him tightly and getting him just as wet, he wished he’d held it a little longer. Or just not done it in the first place. Either way.

Chapter Text

While the group did see a doorway that they presumed led to the rest of the palace now, they decided to continue examining the entryway/temple first to make sure that they didn’t miss anything. Now that everything was sparkling clean, they were able to take it all in. There wasn’t that much interesting though. Just the rest of the rules for conduct in the temple, and then the punishments for breaking those rules. Only when they gleaned everything they could learn from there did they consider heading into the palace. The new door led to a stairwell that they walked slowly up, looking for anything on the walls, floors, or stairs that could be interesting, but it was all blank, making for a boring trip. Until they stepped into the large room across from the top of the stairs.

The moment they crossed the threshold, Henry froze in place and a voice came from his mouth that wasn’t his. “To those who have come after us, we have left instructions in our thrones. This realm is now yours to guide when and if you choose to do so.”

Once the message was over, Henry blinked a few times and looked around confusedly. “You are the messenger,” Damon shrugged. “Makes sense that the message would come through you.”

“Does that mean we should all sit on the thrones with our symbols?” Bonnie asked curiously.

“That seems to be the intent, but we should think about it before jumping in,” Enzo suggested.

“Yeah, that might just end up with them taking control of us or something,” Elena shuddered at the idea.

“I don’t think so,” Sheila shook her head. “The voice said that it was our choice how to guide this ‘realm’. If we wouldn’t be us anymore, our choice wouldn’t matter.”

“And if it would bring them back somehow, they wouldn’t have given control over to us,” Abby added the other concern.

“But what instructions could they mean?” Stefan asked thoughtfully.

“Maybe how to use our powers and stuff,” Caroline suggested. “Since everything else is apparently our choice and all.”

“And I don’t think that taking the thrones would require us to ‘guide the realm’ given the way they worded that, so it’s probably a good idea to do it,” Damon said as he looked around the room. The room had thirteen golden thrones, each with a different symbol, in a circle around the room and a large round thing in the center that might have looked like a table if not for the symbols arranged around the edge and the material within that which they couldn’t tell whether it was solid, liquid, or gas. When Caroline couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch it, Enzo yanked her hand back and raised an eyebrow, getting a sheepish look in response.

It was a bit of doing getting everyone to the correct thrones since no one could see their own mark, and not everyone knew the symbols of the god that they’d received the powers from, but once they had everyone in the right place, they all sat as one and the nine occupied thrones out of the thirteen lit up as their occupants went into something like a trance. None of them were sure how much time had passed, especially since their electronics had been fried by the big storm that restored the palace, including their watches, but they all came out of it at the same time with a much better idea of their powers and how to use them. They also now knew how to use the things in the palace including the large center table which turned out to be something like a holographic viewer. It would allow them to see any event on Earth, past or present, as well as share events from their own memories.

They decided to play with that later and let Sheila lead them to the palace library that only she could unseal, and on the way Stefan asked amusedly, “So you’re the king of the gods huh, brother?”

“Nah,” Damon chuckled. “Zeus was king because of his relationship with the rest of the gods. Not because he had more power than them or anything. Far as I’m concerned, we’re a committee. When it comes to anything we need to be a committee on anyway.”

“Just so I’m clear…we’re not taking over the world right?” Elena felt the need to ask, regardless of how ridiculous it sounded.

“I vote no. Not anytime soon at least,” Enzo said wryly, and everyone else completely agreed. “Our first vote is a unanimous one at least.”

“Here we are,” Sheila said as they got to the large double doors and she placed her hands on them, letting her power flow through to unseal it. “I’ll also have the power to duplicate any book in the world or even create from memory any that I’ve read before to add to this library,” she told them as everyone walked inside, looking around in awe.

“It would take forever to read all these,” Caroline said with wide eyes.

“And to learn the languages to read them all,” Elena added, very eager to get to it eventually.

“I will be able to translate them as well. Translations are never perfect though, so learning the languages is a good idea, but don’t feel any need to rush,” Sheila told them. She was granted the knowledge of all languages as part of her powers.

“We’ll get deeper into this stuff later,” Enzo stopped people from disappearing into the grand hall with rows upon rows of books and scrolls. “Let’s just get the rest of the specialized rooms open, huh?”

“I’m guessing you want to get to the music room?” Damon guessed amusedly, knowing that would be the only thing that got Enzo so eager.

“You know it,” Enzo smirked. “And I’ll be able to play any instrument, create any instrument I know, and even set them to play themselves.”

“Hang on,” Sheila said before they could get far. There should be a side room here that only you can open too.”

“Right. The oracles,” Enzo remembered. He’d been so eager to get to the music that he’d forgotten his role as prophecy as well. Which wasn’t particularly far-fetched when considering that prophecies were related poetry which was related to song. Which was also how he related to healing too. His power to heal was through lyrical chants. Which was why the infirmary was next to the music room. “We’re definitely coming back here later though,” Enzo said as he looked at all the labeled prophecy scrolls in little boxes lining the walls.

“It does seem the most likely place to figure out what’s going on and why,” Abby agreed. She could get behind opening the rest of the place up first though. They could get to that later. They had at least six weeks to explore all this, maybe more if they decided to stay for good. Which wasn’t particularly likely, but was on the table at least.

“But first the music room before my beloved husband vibrates out of his skin,” Damon said with a loving kiss.

“Right. And the infirmary right next door may as well be unsealed too and will only take minutes,” Enzo added as an afterthought as they headed down the hall in that direction.

“These rooms completely defy the laws of physics,” Stefan commented as Enzo opened the door to the music room.

“How so?” Henry asked before anyone else could.

“They’re so much bigger than should be possible given the outside dimensions of the building,” Stefan pointed out.

“You have noticed how much we can fit in our bags, right?” Bonnie asked amusedly.

“Yeah, but that’s not on nearly this scale,” Stefan shook his head. “You’re right, but it’s still amazing.”

“Just one more quick thing before we move on,” Enzo said, holding out a hand. “No way I’m leaving without adding a guitar to the mix.” He set the newly created instrument down on the stand that materialized for it, in the place of honor nearest the door, before they headed out. He stopped next door to unseal the infirmary, but they barely did more there than stick their heads in for a look before they were moving on.

“Next stop the courtyard?” Stefan asked hopefully. That was where the smithing and crafting area was located. He would be able to shape wood, metal, and stone, and any other natural substance with his mind’s eye.

“There’s an entrance just up this way, so sure,” Abby agreed. She wasn’t worried about the gardens and fields right now, which would be her purview. It was all so overgrown that she would need more time than the look-see tour they were doing to bother with it. That and they’d already basically seen a lot of it. It was where their tents were pitched in fact.

Stefan put his hand on the sealed archway and closed his eyes, causing the stone to retract and open not just that one entrance to the vast courtyard, but all four entrances. They walked in and around for a minute, taking it all in before going back in the way they came.

Chapter Text

“I’m next,” Elena said eagerly as they approached a pillar at the end of the hall. “The entrance to the common area and the tower of our personal rooms.”

“Why don’t we open the social hall down there first,” Caroline suggested. “Then we can just call it a day and get some relaxing done, find our rooms, and all that.”

“Do we still need to sleep?” Henry asked curiously.

“I don’t think so. But if that’s all you need a bedroom for I feel sorry for Abby,” Damon quipped. And then got smacked by Abby as Enzo snickered behind his hand, earning him a smack too.

“Okay, we’ll open up the social hall first,” Elena said before she ended up learning far more than she wanted to about other people’s sex lives. Or before a fight broke out. Whichever.

“That is something to consider though, generally speaking,” Abby said as they walked down the hall. “We won’t need to sleep, or eat, or anything else.”

“It is nice to have that persistent hunger gone,” Enzo said relieved.

“But hopefully we /can/ still eat if we want to,” Damon frowned. “Like we could as vampires even though we didn’t need human food.”

“I’m sure we can,” Sheila said amusedly. “And we do still need rest and relaxation even if we don’t need sleep,” she pointed out.

“Here we are,” Caroline said as she placed her hand on the doors to open them. “I’ll be able to change this hall up to whatever I want at any given time.”

“What else can you do?” Bonnie asked her curiously.

“Well I can do hair and makeup with just a thought, create clothing fashions from my mind. I can see love of all types between people and how strong it is as well as potential love and compatibility. It’s gonna take me a while to get used to sorting out all that input all the time though.”

“How does that work?” Stefan asked as Elena led them back the way they came to open up the living area.

“Everyone has an aura of sorts when I look at them. Complimentary auras mean potential romantic love interests. Apparently they often become platonic friends too since everyone has complimentary auras with a lot of people, but that’s the gist. Already formed bonds show as something like a rope connecting the people. For those who are close by, it just connects the two people. For those that aren’t there’s a sort of ghostly image of that person on the other end. Different colors are different types of love. Like the couples have a different color tie than the family members and friends have a different still. All of the friends here are very close to the family color though. There are different shades and all,” Caroline explained as they all found seats around the fireplace that Bonnie lit with a fireball from her hands.

“We should set aside some time to practice together with the powers we all share too,” Henry suggested. “Not tonight, but at some point in the next few days of course.” Those powers included teleportation, though some of them would have different methods or effects when they did so. They also included telekinesis, which was one of the most basic powers as well as the ability to sprout wings and fly. Those that didn’t have it already also had enhanced mental capacity, strength, and speed. Even the vampires had been enhanced over what they had before though. Their senses all stayed the same, save for the addition of new ones, which meant the vampires still had better senses than the former humans or witches, but that would just be considered another difference like they had different powers and abilities as gods.

“Well some of it we can start now,” Damon smirked as he held out a hand to call a glass to him. “Don’t suppose anyone has the ability to manifest booze?” he asked hopefully.

“I can do food, but I suppose booze is worth a try,” Abby said amusedly. “We’d need a Dionysus to get the really good stuff though.”

“How about a nice smooth bourbon?” Enzo asked hopefully.

“Put your cups down on the table. I can’t do containers and I don’t trust my aim enough yet to get them in your hands,” Abby chuckled and eight glasses hit the table. No one was going to complain about the underage girls getting booze after the day they’d had. She added her glass to make nine, and then raised her arms, focusing on the type of bourbon that Damon and Enzo always kept on hand.

Once the cups were full, with a bit of spillage on the table that Henry was quick to wipe up, they all tried a sip. Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie clearly thought it was rather strong given their reactions, but everyone else knew better. “Rather weak, but drinkable,” Damon said wryly.

“You know…I can duplicate pretty much anything as part of my ‘trade’ skills,” Henry pointed out. “And I know we brought some real bourbon.” He wanted to give his girlfriend a chance to try first, but since it could use some improvement, it bore mentioning.

“Be right back,” Damon said before disappearing in a flash of lightning right there from the opulent couch.

“Oh for the love of…” Elena reached over to try to brush off the spot where the burn mark was, but ended up needing to use her power to fix it. About that time Damon returned in another flash of lightning, this time leaving a scorch mark on the floor and loaded down with all their bags, including the rolled up tents. “Next time, don’t do that from the couch. In fact…that’s your spot right there. Better one scorch mark than a dozen.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Damon gave a playful salute as he laughed and started handing out the bags to go through. Sorting out what went in personal rooms and what would be shared in the common room. Elena created another large table to help with the sorting and some nice comfortable chairs around it.

As soon as the bourbon was found, of which they had twelve bottles in the expanded pack, Henry grabbed one to duplicate, and then refreshed everyone’s glasses from the duplicated bottle to make sure it was as good as the real thing. Once it was pronounced perfect, he started making more bottles. The initial dozen would stay in the common area and three each were made for Damon and Enzo’s room, Stefan’s room, and Henry and Abby’s room. He also started duplicating the single bottle of brandy that was Sheila’s drink of choice. One for the common area and one for her room. They would make more duplicates for other rooms that they would be spending time in later.

Once everything was separated out, with the camping supplies set aside in a closet, everyone went to find their rooms. Damon and Enzo would be taking Zeus’ rooms instead of Apollo’s. Not just because they were bigger, but because they were at the top of the tower and had a wrap-around balcony for him to better control and observe the weather from. Abby and Henry would be taking Demeter’s rooms since they overlooked the gardens, and Henry didn’t have a special place like that. Everyone else would take the rooms of the god whose powers they had. Enzo did grab quite a few things from Apollo’s rooms though, including all the smaller musical instruments he kept around, just as Henry did from Hermes' rooms.

Once they were all in their rooms looking around, Damon huffed a laugh. “I think I found where Zeus always came in and out from,” he pointed at the large scorch mark on the balcony’s rotunda floor.

“Might want to start using that lest you risk Elena’s ire again,” Enzo chuckled.

“Yeah, apparently the goddess of hearth and home doesn’t like her hearth sullied,” Damon snickered.

“You did put something of a big burn mark in the nicest couch I’ve ever seen,” Enzo had to point out. She hadn’t handled the floor incident so badly, at least.

“Oops,” Damon shrugged sheepishly. “I didn’t realize it would do that.”

“Maybe you can lessen that effect with practice. I doubt Zeus did it /everywhere/ he went after all. Probably just when he was upset or distracted,” Enzo suggested.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Damon nodded. “I’ll work on it.”

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Enzo asked as they got everything put away. Alongside the ancient clothing rather than throwing it out.

“I was thinking we finish opening up the last few places, the exit to the gardens, the stables, and the path down the mountain, and then we can just spend the rest of the day in our own pursuits. There are a few people that might just explode if they don’t get to play soon,” Damon said wryly.

“I’m not going to explode. I just want to get my hands on that music room is all,” Enzo shrugged.

“Who said I meant you?” Damon teased, pulling Enzo into bed with him. “Abby’s been twitchy about all that overgrowth even before we got the powers of the gods, and I thought Sheila was going to go into raptures in that library.”

“We do need to get to those prophecies and see if we can figure out what’s going on though, but I agree we could use a day off to come to terms with our changes and explore them,” Enzo nodded. “We can get to the oracle archives the day after that.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Damon agreed. “But right now, I’m more interested in the plan for tonight,” he said suggestively, pulling his beloved into a searing kiss.

Chapter Text

The group ended up taking a few hours to rest and relax before getting back to their explorations the next morning. Starting with the storehouse which was Henry’s to open up. They found exactly what they’d hoped to find. Preserved food and drink of all kinds. Henry started duplicating enough for them to share a nice breakfast in the social hall that Caroline redesigned into a dining room for the meal. They were all interested in trying the ancient food, and it would help the rations they brought along to last longer. Plus the fact that, to save space, the vampires didn’t eat human food when they were camping, so there was even less. They found a shelf of booze in there too and they all wanted to try it, so they all got a small glass with the meal.

“Whoo!” Damon said, first to down his little more than a shot. “It’s a bit on the sweet side, but it’s definitely got a kick.” He was even a bit lightheaded.

“Makes sense if it’s for the gods,” Abby said amusedly, taking a little sip of hers rather than tossing back the whole thing like Damon had. “They’d want something that could get them drunk.”

“I could get used to the sweet,” Enzo said swirling it around in his mouth before swallowing. “For that kind of kick, it’s worth it.” Just for when they wanted to cut loose and party though. Or if they needed something stronger to calm a hyper-emotional state like a temper. For casual use they could keep their bourbon.

“Why don’t you duplicate a jug of this for each of us while we’re here?” Sheila suggested to Henry, also appreciating it quite a bit. She rarely got drunk but she did enjoy the slight buzz from her usual nightcap. A buzz she couldn’t get anymore off the regular brandy. “Each of us adults,” she corrected.

“Which counts for everyone here,” Bonnie pointed out with a grin, reminding her that she, Caroline, and Elena were eighteen now. She hoped she wouldn’t have to point out that the drinking age in the US wasn’t the same in the rest of the world and that in most of the world, it was perfectly legal for them to drink.

“She’s got a point there, Mom,” Abby chuckled. “Okay, you can each have a jug, but make it last and be responsible with it or we’re cutting you off.”

“We will. Promise,” Elena agreed, still just sipping hers slowly. It really did taste good. Much better than the bourbon that was passed around the night before. But it was going straight to her head.

“I wonder if this fruit exists anywhere in the world anymore,” Henry changed the subject, loving the pastry he was munching on.

“Or if it ever existed in the world at all,” Caroline pointed out that possibility.

“Which is why we’re duplicating everything to eat instead of just taking it, I’m guessing,” Stefan said/asked, getting nods all around from the more experienced adventurers. “What if it starts going bad now that we’ve unsealed the store room?”

“I’ll check after breakfast, but I’m relatively sure that the preservation spells were separate from the sealing,” Sheila told him.

“That would make sense,” Damon nodded. “I doubt they would have stocked it just to sit there for who even knows how long. It was probably where they got their food too.”

“Assuming they ate at all, since we don’t need to,” Elena pointed out.

“The legends of the Greek gods imply that they enjoyed a good feast and a good party,” Abby told her.

Once they finished the meal, and confirmed that the preservation spells on the storeroom were still intact, they headed to open up the rest of the outdoor spaces. They started with the private entrance to the gardens which would lead to the other two. They were surprised to find that there was a change from just the overgrown fields that they knew from the outside. The back of the castle had apparently been for flowers and herbs while the rest was for fields. It was still particularly overgrown and all a mess, but they could see something of the prior organization still. They walked around the gardens and reached the stables next which were Bonnie’s to open, aside from one section, much like the library had been, that was for Henry to open. The part that contained Hermes’ golden chariot. “Now /that/s riding in style,” Damon joked with a whistle.

“Too bad it would be so out of place and he couldn’t be spotted flying it,” Enzo said wryly. “Which would apply for the pegasi too,” he gestured to all the animals waking from their stasis.

“Actually the chariot can go invisible when I choose,” Henry explained. “And I would assume the pegasus pulling it as well.” They’d only gotten the specific information relating to their own abilities and areas of expertise. Which was why Bonnie had to explain the next part.

“The pegasi are invisible to humans since they were never a part of this world. They were created special by the gods. Witches and vampires would be able to see them though most likely,” Bonnie told them.

“They’re used to keeping secrets. I don’t think that would be an issue,” Sheila told them. “They’ll figure out pretty quick that only they can see them.”

“That’s good. Because they don’t need to be locked up in these stables all the time,” Bonnie said fondly as she brushed her hand down the neck of one of them. “There are thirteen of them, one for each of the Olympian gods, so you can all choose a personal one if you want and I can bind them to you, or you can just grab them whenever.”

“Why did they make pegasi to ride when they have wings of their own to fly?” Stefan asked confusedly.

“I would imagine it would get tiring to fly around on their own wings all the time,” Caroline said amusedly.

“As for choosing our own personal pegasus, I suggest we save that for when and if we form a connection with one and until then we can just share them,” Abby suggested.

“If we let them free, how will we do that?” Elena asked curiously, already petting one herself.

“They’ll sense anyone entering the stables and return. Once they’re bonded to a specific person, they’ll only come back when that person enters the stables, or calls them from elsewhere,” Bonnie answered.

They all took a few minutes, making sure each of the gorgeous animals got a bit of attention before Bonnie let them free and they continued walking around to the gate to the forest path down the mountain. Bonnie got that gate unlocked as well, which also caused a bow and a quiver of arrows to appear. “I wondered where that was,” Bonnie grinned as she strung an arrow experimentally, but didn’t let it loose.

“Do you even know how to use that?” Caroline asked amusedly.

“I do now,” Bonnie grinned. “It’s part of my powers. Any arrow will always fly true to where I intend it to go.”

“What other powers do you have?” Sheila asked her curiously.

“Other than that, it’s mostly stealth based. Invisibility, which I can take people with me, but only when they stay close. Blocking my scent and any inherent sounds like my heartbeat and breathing. Beyond that it’s on me to stay silent when hunting,” Bonnie explained. “I’m not sure if my offensive abilities with a bow would transfer to more modern weapons like guns, but they do work for spears and other thrown weapons too. Just not as strongly as with the bow.”

“Anything else we need to open up before we split up to explore the rest of the day?” Enzo asked.

“I’m relatively certain we can’t open the other side of the palace where the Roman’s lived, so I don’t believe so,” Sheila answered, so from there they all split up. Bonnie went to take a walk in the forest, not to hunt, but just to familiarize herself with the area and test out her abilities. Henry went to try out his new chariot, with the invisibility on of course. Abby tackled the gardens, using her abilities to shape and control the growth. The rest of them headed back inside, though Stefan was just going in and through to the open courtyard. He wanted to play with his abilities to build things. Not that he would be making anything specific right now. Just playing with the different things he could do. Caroline went back to her personal room to play with first changing up her hair and makeup and then designing new clothes. And plan a party/feast for the evening of course.

Elena just walked around for a while familiarizing herself with the place, looking in all the other random rooms on the four floors below the tower that hadn’t been specially sealed. And the four that they couldn’t open because of the missing gods, she did at least try the doors, but as expected they were sealed. As were all the doors on the other two sides of the palace. Sheila, as expected, went straight for the library. She created quite a few books and grimoires from her memory to add to the shelves before she just started browsing. Enzo, also as expected, hit the music room, exploring his ability to have all the instruments playing as one while making newer instruments that hadn’t existed back then and learning to manually play the ancient ones.

Damon headed up to the top of the tower, walking around his balcony for a few minutes before spreading his wings and jumping off. He was well familiar with flying in his raven spirit animal form, so didn’t expect he’d have much problem with this one, and he was right. It was different, and he probably looked drunk with all the corrections and swerving he was doing, but he soon got the hang of it. And even joined Henry for a while, flying alongside his chariot before looping back the other direction to make a storm to play in and have some fun riding the lightning.

Chapter Text

Once Caroline had the social hall set up for the party/feast, she teleported to Henry in a wash of rose petals once she could sense he was on the ground. She had him send a message to the group to be in the social hall at sundown and then asked if he would kindly get a feast duplicated and laid out for them. And then a second message to Enzo asking for music. The messages also specified ancient dress. She wanted it to be a ‘theme’ party, more or less. At least regarding the clothes and food. The music she would leave in Enzo’s hands, knowing nothing about ancient music and whether it was any good. Or even if Enzo knew any of it, though presumably he would have been given that knowledge.

Damon barely managed to grab his message before it got incinerated by a lightning bolt, and he snorted amusedly at what it contained. He could go for a party, but leave it to Caroline to call a theme. When the sun started to set, he teleported back to his balcony rotunda in a flash of lightning and headed inside to see Enzo coming in with a large stack of papers. “What’s all that?” Damon asked curiously, as he went to check the wardrobe for something of Zeus’ to wear.

“New music I composed,” Enzo said. “Once I get it all the way I want it, I can create the sheet music.”

“That’s a lot,” Damon said surprised.

“It’s only one piece really. Just for a full orchestra, so I have all the different instrumental parts separated along with the full composition,” Enzo told him, setting the stack on the desk and heading to the wardrobe himself. It didn’t take them long to notice that the togas resized themselves to fit, as did the gold belts and the ivy wreath crowns decorated in gold. The sashes were one size fits all. “You know…this is more comfortable than I expected,” Enzo said thoughtfully.

“And you look very sexy in it,” Damon smirked as he captured his husband in a teasing deep kiss. “I feel like an idiot,” he said about his own getup though.

“You look just as sexy, darling,” Enzo said suggestively. “I can’t wait until I get to take that back off of you,” he purred, teasing his mouth over Damon’s exposed neck, tongue tracing the lightning bold there.

“Mmm, keep that up and we won’t make the party,” Damon pulled him close, grabbing his ass.

Enzo chuckled and gave a sharp nip to Damon’s shoulder as he pulled away. “One downside. These things don’t really hide much,” he said amusedly.

As they headed down the tower, they met up with everyone else coming back from changing and they all definitely looked the part for their new roles. They got to the social hall and saw that it was set up for a much grander event than nine guests would indicate. There was a long table at the back of the hall on a raised dais loaded down with a feast. There was a smaller dais by the door, clearly where Enzo was supposed to set up the music, which he was quick to do. He’d decided to do more modern music, but played on the ancient instruments and he called them forth from the music room and set them to play before they all made their way around the dance floor to the table to eat first. The decorations around the place were top notch with draped silks and flowers for emphasis. Caroline had done an amazing job.

There were four jugs of meade along the table that were shared liberally among all of them who were well on the way to drunk by the time the meal finished and they hit the dance floor. Aside from drink breaks, and sometimes grabbing some snacks from the leftover food, they stayed on the dance floor until the sun came up, dancing in all different configurations. There were even a few times that couples ducked into the smaller multipurpose side rooms for a little drunken quickie or two. Sheila even disappeared with Damon and Enzo at one point. By mutual agreement though, the party ended once the sun came up and they took a few hours to rest and let the booze wear off before they were to meet in the oracle archives to get some actual work done.

It didn’t take them long to find a prophecy that said that the gods would be renewed, but it took them a little longer to find out what had happened to the old ones. As the people turned away from them and they got bored, they left this world to find another one, leaving their legacy behind for someone else to take up the mantle someday. It would take a few more days before they found out why them. And it was all Bonnie, Abby, and Sheila’s fault. That answer wasn’t found in the archives, but in the main library. At the back of the main library at that. A self updating family tree tapestry that they scrolled through to find that the Bennett witches were descended from Zeus.

Zeus had a son with a mortal and named him Ben. It was Ben who stole the magic from the gods to give to humans, but Zeus’ line passed through his daughters in a straight line to Quetsiyah, down to Ayana, and to Sheila, Abby, and then Bonnie. That was why Abby was able to get through the barrier to the temple that stopped Damon and open that up for everyone. It was why Bonnie’s recitation of the incantation started the restoration. And it was Sheila, as the matriarch, had to step through the doorway and be judged. And her high estimation of her companions had them elevated too. They joked that it made her the queen of the gods, but she firmly agreed with Damon’s equal council idea. Should they ever need to make any decisions as gods that was. Their collective power, even with the four thrones empty, could do far more than any of their single powers could, but they weren’t planning to do anything with that anytime soon.

They were glad to find that almost none of what happened had been noticed by anyone else, which meant they didn’t have to answer questions. They’d seen the initial storm and earthquakes, and there had even been concern that the ancient volcano was waking up, but those concerns soon passed when nothing else happened. Outside of the inner death ward surrounding the place, it still appeared the same as it had before. There had been talk about taking down the death ward before they decided against it. The previous two wards, with added signs to turn back, were considered enough of a warning.

They stayed for the entire six weeks, still more or less doing the job they’d come to do. Learning about the ancient world, even if it was in a different way and much more information than they could ever have imagined. Not that they could tell anyone that anyway. As far as the world would have to be concerned, they struck out. Sure, they could have taken a few artifacts and pictures of the temple area back, but since they could never open the site for others to study, it was much easier to just pretend they found nothing. It wasn’t like secrets were anything new to any of them. Even Elena and Caroline had gotten some practice keeping the supernatural secrets in the last year.

There was some sadness to be leaving at the end of the six weeks, but they could just teleport back anytime they wanted and they did all want to get back to their lives. The younger group even wanted to go to college like they planned, though they would accept the truncated version thanks to their enhanced memories. Most of them had decided against going into the historical fields though. They had everything they could ever learn about history right there at their fingertips in the four story palace library that would be expanding even more over time. Those who were already in the field would finish up this lifetime as they started, but when they started over again, probably when the younger group finished college, they would consider changing fields. Enzo, for one, planned to become a composer and already had a few compositions waiting. He did like teaching though, so might become a music teacher as well.

Damon also planned to stay a teacher, and did still love anthropology, but could get behind studying and teaching world literature instead just for a change of pace. Sheila was the only one not planning to change on the surface. She would continue with occult studies and magical research. Just because their own powers were well in excess of any normal witch now, she got the feeling that the power would dilute back down in future generations. Bonnie’s children and grandchildren would be considered lower tier gods, but after that they would be about the same power levels as witches, though they would always stay powerful witches, as evidenced by the continuation of their own line. Her research would become relevant to her family again, and in the meantime, she might even help other witches with some of it as well.

Chapter Text

By the time the group returned to Mystic Falls, they were all gearing up for a new school year and those just starting college for the first time, including Henry, were gearing their new majors to the interests that their powers came from. Henry would be going for business. Caroline for fashion design. Stefan for applied physics. Bonnie for ecology. There wasn’t really a degree for Elena, but she’d always wanted to be a writer, so she would go for that. Abby, when she started over, would study botany, having just gone into the family business otherwise. Not that she didn’t enjoy the magical research. She did very much. But even then, most of her research into magic involved herbal approaches and she could still do that on the side. Even as a vampire there had been plenty of time for side interests, and with the addition of being gods, there was even more.

There had been some debate at first as to whether they were still vampires at all, especially since they didn’t /need/ to drink blood anymore. They still had their fangs though. They hadn’t changed physiologically…that they were aware of yet. And they still had the predatory instincts and the enhanced senses, so they decided that they were. And now that they were back around people, some of them would still drink blood anyway. Not Stefan, but the others would on occasions. More frequently for some than others. It still felt too much a part of who they were.

Even though the classes for the current four godly teachers didn’t really fall into any of their new majors, they would all take at least one from each of them as an elective. Elena could get away with more for creative writing, but the rest would take one per semester. Starting with Damon’s Introduction to Anthropology. Just as the school year was starting though, they had a pretty major revelation. Abby found out she was pregnant. As a vampire. By another vampire. Elena got nervous, not having thought much of missing her last period with her dating a vampire and all. She’d always been irregular anyway. But sure enough, her test came up positive too. Sheila, having gone through menopause years before and hadn’t had a period since, still felt the need to check now too. If their new status could let vampires procreate, then it might have reversed her menopause. She had seemed to deage physically somewhat, but not more than could be explained by an excellent new skincare routine. Sure enough, she came up positive too, but had no idea whether Damon or Enzo was the father. Thankfully they didn’t seem to care either way, ecstatic to have the chance to be dads that would be shared between them without question.

That revelation saw Sheila moving into the boarding house and Stefan being contracted to do some work on the place. Damon and Enzo’s room would be turned into a suite, with a connected nursery, and another suite on the other side for Sheila. Abby and Henry would keep the Bennett house along with Bonnie who, thankfully, hadn’t had anyone to sleep with while they were gone, and would have used protection with humans to begin with. Just as Caroline would have. So it was just Elena, Abby, and Sheila who were expecting. It took a long talk, but they decided not to let it impact their lives more than necessary. Their pregnancies would, naturally, be perfectly healthy, and they could work out childcare around their schedules after the babies were born. Even when it was learned that Sheila was having twins that didn’t change. Once they were born, or perhaps later in the pregnancy, Caroline would be able to see the bonds to know which of the men was the father.

Jenna was particularly unhappy that Elena turned up pregnant just as she started her first year of college, but was still supportive in a ‘what’s done is done’ manner. She still advised against Elena moving in with Stefan though, thinking it was pushing their relationship too fast for the sake of the baby. Elena only agreed to wait until Christmas break though. But that also brought up the idea of bringing Jenna, and Jeremy by proxy, in on the secrets. While it wouldn’t be too difficult to hide Sheila’s pregnancy, as the odd one out, Jenna and Jeremy would be too much a part of her baby’s life to not be in the know. Not to mention the fact that it was obvious that these babies would have powers. Probably from birth. Meaning they couldn’t keep it from them forever. That was a conversation that was put off until Christmas break too though. There would be time.

Given their new ability to teleport, the group had no issues living in Mystic Falls and commuting to school, but Damon and Enzo did decide to keep their apartment as the arrival and departure point as well as keep a few spare cars there for those who had classes on the other side of campus. They ended up splitting it up and keeping Enzo’s, Caroline’s, Elena’s, and Henry’s cars at the college, while everyone else kept them in Mystic Falls. While Damon’s teleportation was the most destructive, there were others with effects that would be difficult to explain without a secure departure and arrival location. Such as Enzo’s musical bells that sounded on his arrival, or Caroline’s smattering of rose petals, or Bonnie’s puff of smoke, or the swirl of wind that accompanied Henry that would knock things around if they hadn’t cleared the transport room of anything small enough.

The fact that they were all commuting though, meant that those living at the boarding house were there on Stefan’s birthday when the usual visitor arrived. One they actually forgot about with everything else going on until she came into Stefan’s room just before the sun came up, surprised to find him awake. “Happy Birthday, Stefan!” Lexi said cheerfully, not having noticed who else was or wasn’t in the house at the time. It was pure luck that Elena wasn’t staying over that night.

“Lexi,” Stefan said bitterly, narrowing his eyes at her, just as a clap of thunder boomed and the sky opened up. That was enough to tell him that his brother heard. Which meant so did Enzo and that backup was coming.

“That’s weird. It was perfectly clear out a few minutes ago,” Lexi said confused before noticing the look on Stefan’s face. “What’s wrong?” Lexi asked with a frown. “You’re not happy to see me?”

“Happy to see the evil bitch that tortured and brainwashed me into hating my own brother for almost a century and a half?” Stefan asked incredulously, hearing Damon and Enzo positioning themselves outside his room, clearly waiting for some signal.
“
Oh no. You let him get into your head didn’t you? I told you that he would try to make me the bad guy. To try and tear us apart,” Lexi said sadly. It seemed she would need to fix him again. If she’d known that Damon was around she would have been more present to keep it from coming to this.

Stefan made a split second decision, and said for Damon and Enzo to hear, “Assemble the council,” before grabbing her and disappearing to the palace, throwing her in the dungeon to wait for everyone else to arrive. He knew that they all still held some level of a grudge over his past treatment of Damon, some more than others, and hoped that broadcasting her evil could help get rid of some of that. Even if they’d forgiven him on the surface, there was still that part of them that was always waiting for him to turn on them again. Maybe seeing for themselves what all she’d done and how she twisted his mind would help them understand.

“Wh-what the hell just happened? Where are we? How did we get here?” Lexi asked incredulously. She hadn’t even perceived any movement, even with as fast as vampires could move. She was just there, and now she was here.

“You’re here for trial,” Stefan smirked. “We’ll get to the truth of the matter. Find out who manipulated who and why. And the guilty party will be punished.” Not that there was any doubt who was guilty in anyone’s mind but hers.

“Trial by who?” Lexi asked confusedly, grabbing the metal bars around her cell that were too strong for even her to break.

“By the council of the gods,” Stefan said smugly, not letting on that he was one of them. If she hadn’t figured that out by the transport method, then she could just find out when they were sitting in judgment of her.

“The…gods?!” she asked horrified. “There’s only one god, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with people like us.”

“You’ll see,” Stefan told her. “You’ll be called when the council is ready for you.” Even on the off chance that she did leave here alive, they could always modify her memories if they thought it necessary.

Chapter Text

Since it was Saturday, there wasn’t any concern of pulling someone out of class for this, and by the time Stefan walked up the stairs from the dungeon to the throne room, half of them were already there. Damon, Enzo, Sheila, and Bonnie. Apparently Abby and Henry would be along shortly, having been otherwise engaged, and Caroline and Elena had family to slip away from which meant waiting until after breakfast. They’d all been told it wasn’t urgent, so whenever they could get there was fine. Once Stefan came in and took a seat on his throne that was now arranged next to Elena’s as they’d all been rearranged for the relationships among them, Damon asked him, “Are you sure you want to do this? Put her on full trial?”

“Yeah, seems a bit overkill, mate,” Enzo said wryly.

“Not to mention that it will involve seeing rather difficult memories,” Damon pointed out.

“I want those memories seen. And her to be here to answer for them. I want everyone to see just what I went through at her hands and to hopefully understand my prior idiocy a little better,” Stefan said seriously. “As for it being overkill…maybe. But if anyone deserves to have her face rubbed in what we are now…what we were deemed /worthy/ of…it’s her.”

“Can’t really argue with that,” Bonnie snorted amusedly.

“We will happily give up some of our free time to get you the closure you need,” Sheila agreed.

“Yes, we certainly can,” Abby agreed as she came in, hand in hand with Henry as they took their places on their thrones.

“Sorry I’m late,” Caroline said as she skipped in and over to her throne. “What happened?”

“May as well wait for Elena so we don’t have to explain it all over again,” Henry said amusedly.

“I’m here,” Elena came in time to hear that.

“Lexi came to see me for my birthday,” Stefan told them. “I wanted to put her on trial so she has to answer for everything she did to me, and possibly others before she’s sentenced to death.”

“Sentencing shouldn’t be decided before the trial begins,” Sheila said. “Nor should the verdict be. If you want us to sit in judgment, it will be a fair trial.”

“Okay. I can live with that,” Stefan nodded his agreement. “Which means, I suppose Damon and I should recuse ourselves from voting.”

“Only if we get to participate in prosecuting her,” Damon smirked. He had a few memories he’d like to show and there was no doubt that anyone wouldn’t be voting guilty anyway. “And we still have the right to sit on our thrones obviously.” Everyone easily agreed to that, so they were ready to start the trial. A wave of a hand had Lexi transported into the throne room and secured to a chair.

“What is this?” she hissed, turning her glare on Damon when she saw him sitting on a gold throne. Of all the arrogant self-absorbed things.

“A little bit of backstory, and then introductions before we get started,” Sheila said. “A few months ago, our expedition team found what turned out to be Mount Olympus. The ancient home of the Gods. We were brought to judgment and the nine of us were judged worthy of taking the places of the ancient one. I am Sheila, goddess of knowledge and wisdom,” she gestured Damon to go next as next in line.

“I am Damon, god of the storm, electricity, and weather.”

“I am Enzo, god of music, prophecy, and healing.”

“I am Abby, goddess of the harvest, agriculture, and fertility.”

“I am Henry, the messenger god of athletics, travel, and mischeif.”

“I am Stefan, god of crafting, building, and smithing.”

“I am Elena, goddess of hearth and home.”

“I am Caroline, goddess of love and beauty.”

“I am Bonnie, goddess of animals and the hunt.”

Lexi had been forced into silence while the gods were speaking, but now she was free to speak. “You dare call yourself gods?!” she asked incredulously. “And to think that anyone would ever judge Damon as worthy of anything but a painful death is ridiculous.” She turned her attention to Stefan and told him, “Stefan, you have to take me out of here. I don’t know what corruption these people have been putting in your head…and Elena…I thought better of you when we met last year, but now…”

“Silence!” Sheila infused her voice with power, causing the room to shudder. “The trial will now begin. Your charges are torture, brainwashing, and defamation. Damon and Stefan will be prosecuting you and will not participate in the vote. It is the other seven of us that will be deciding your fate.”

“I would like to start by showing my memories of the time after we met,” Damon said, stepping over to the viewer and placing his hand over his symbol on the outer ring of symbols. There were a series of memories shown where she was trying to convince Damon that they only way to get his brother back was through torture and telling him that his coddling of Stefan was only making it worse. Her many hints and even outright suggestions to leave. The final memory was of him begging her to just help Stefan, no matter what, as he left.

“Would you like to offer any memories to add context to any of that, or make any argument in your defense?” Sheila asked Lexi, taking over the chairman role for the trial. They hadn’t told her yet that she would be compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for as long as she was in this room.

“Stefan let himself become a monster. He deserved the torture. The only way to fix a monster is to break him and remold him,” Lexi snapped.

“And yet…when you came to supposedly help me do the same, that’s not what you did, now is it?” Damon asked, placing his hand back on the icon and calling up the memory of them partying together, having fun, and then her pushing him to talk about Katherine.

“She was the only person you ever cared about other than yourself. If the memory of her couldn’t bring you back, then nothing could,” Lexi said defensively.

“Leaving aside the fact that I’ve cared about a lot of people over the years, am married now to a wonderful man that I’ve loved for almost sixty years, and have many others that I call family,” Damon said pointedly, ignoring her look of incredulous distaste, “You weren’t really trying to help me then were you?”

“I was just trying to do enough to satisfy Stefan until you went far enough that he wouldn’t blame me for quitting,” Lexi couldn’t help but admit.

“And yet, it worked. I got my humanity back anyway, despite the flaws in your methods, and no torture in sight,” Damon smirked.

“And still stayed a monster, so my point stands,” Lexi snapped. “And how could you claim to have loved someone if your humanity was off for decades?”

“I’m not the one on trial here,” Damon smirked.

“Well if I’m being charged with defamation of you, then shouldn’t you have to prove me wrong?” she asked smugly.

“She’s right,” Sheila admitted. “Unless you want to withdraw that charge.” If this was to be fair, they would have to judge based on the evidence presented. Not what they knew of Damon personally.

“No, it’s fine. I’m happy to prove myself,” Damon agreed as he placed his hand back on the sigil. “This is why I turned it off. And why I was so resistant to getting it back,” he said as he showed a series of scenes from the dungeon. A few of the tortures, but most of him and Enzo talking, getting closer. He showed one memory of a normal party where they were dragged out, chained like animals, and dragged through the crowd that jeered at them, spit on them, and called them monsters. More than one person looked rather sick at that even before the scene changed to the conversation that had Enzo giving up all his rations for a year and finally the last party. Once it got to the point where Damon failed to break the cage open, he said, “Watching the man I loved die was an agony so unbearable that I couldn’t cope. I turned it off. And once it was off…there was nothing stopping me from walking away,” he said as the memory showed himself doing just that.

“And what did you do once you got your humanity back?” Enzo asked, just so that would be ‘on the record’ as well.

“The only thing I could stomach doing. Come back to the place it happened to torment myself with the memories until I got the guts to end my misery and join my beloved in death. Until I found out that the secret society that tortured us was still there. Then I went after them first, and found out that Enzo wasn’t as dead as I’d feared,” Damon answered. “I went to school, got a doctorate in Anthropology, and went to what is now Pontier college to teach. Which I have been doing ever since.”

“And eating your students, no doubt,” Lexi scoffed.

“I have never once, in more than thirty years of teaching, harmed a student,” Damon said seriously. He’d snacked on them, sure, but never to the degree that would hurt them.

“Lies,” Lexi huffed.

“No one can lie in this room while a trial is in progress. You can only speak the truth or what you believe the truth to be. This is as true for us gods as it is for you,” Sheila told her.

Chapter Text

Lexi didn’t know what to say to that, but still didn’t believe Damon for a moment. She didn’t even notice Stefan stepping up and placing his hand on his sigil while Damon returned to his throne for the moment. “Witness now, what was done to me by the accused,” Stefan said as it showed scene after scene of his torture until he finally turned his humanity back on to escape it. “That went on for three months,” Stefan told them. “Not comparable to Damon’s five years, or Enzo’s forty, but with the added carrot of obedience to end it, this is what came next,” Stefan explained as he showed how pathetic he was following Lexi’s every word like law, even as she plied him with the animal blood that he couldn’t even keep down at first. He showed that so that it would mean more for the next part that showed her convincing him that his brother was the root of all evil. Because he drank human blood and declined her every offer to teach him a ‘better way’.

That was the only point where Stefan fought back. Refusing to hear her. Arguing against her points. But she stayed firm. Tearing apart every argument he made. Every good thing he told her about his brother was twisted into something bad. If she couldn’t twist the actions, she twisted the motivations. And it kept happening until he started believing it, helped by the conditioning to obey her. “You intentionally brainwashed me to believe the worst of my own brother. Why?” Stefan asked after the memories had been shown. When he glanced at Damon, he saw his brother’s jaw set tensely, and Enzo holding his hand soothingly. The storm raging outside was proof enough of how Damon was feeling after seeing that though.

“Because he would have dragged you right back to the human blood,” Lexi answered. “He would have convinced you that it was okay to drink human blood.”

“But you don’t think it is?” Stefan asked.

“Humans are precious. They are God’s chosen. To drink their blood is the highest sin,” Lexi answered.

“And yet, you drink human blood, do you not?” Stefan pointed out.

“I have to. I have to stay strong enough to be able to control the others. To be strong enough to show them the way and to bring them back to it when they stumble. I regret every drop of human blood that passes my lips, but it’s necessary to carry out my mission. Countless more would suffer if I didn’t,” she explained what she believed.

“There’s a word for that, princess,” Damon said sarcastically. “It starts with an H and ends in ypocrite.”

“Stumbled like I ‘stumbled’ for a decade before you found and ‘fixed’ me?” Stefan asked, showing the memories of Lexi capturing him in Chicago in nineteen twenty-two and the torture that followed.

“You were killing people left and right. Innocent people. You were a monster that needed to be stopped,” Lexi answered.

“I’m not disputing that part,” Stefan told her. “But let’s consider /why/ I became that monster.” He showed the memory of Damon convincing him to try human blood again, ignoring her statement that it was just proof that Damon needed to be kept away from him, though his own statement answered that anyway. “If not for the fact that you destroyed my faith in my brother, and convinced me that I /couldn’t/ learn control on human blood, I would never have fallen that day. I would have let Damon teach me. I would have learned control then and every person I killed since would have lived. /You/ caused that, Lexi. Not Damon.” Stefan then changed the memories to show Sheila switching Damon and Stefan’s bloodlust to prove that they were the same, and then Damon and Enzo teaching him how to feed. How careful they were with where to bite, how to know when to stop, how to make sure someone was healthy enough to lose blood. The very same techniques that Lexi would admit to using. And he showed himself getting better at it until he was able to do it effortlessly. “So you see? I could have learned control if I’d trusted Damon to teach me.”

“And for the record, yes I did use those techniques at that time, though had only recently been taught some of them myself,” Damon threw in. “Do you use those techniques too? Could you have taught them to me back in eighteen sixty-four and prevented all the deaths that came from my attempting to learn on my own?”

“Yes to both, but drinking human blood is still wrong, so I would never encourage them by teaching them,” Lexi said bitterly. “I tried to convince you to feed the only good way, but you declined.” She turned to Stefan. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save you in the end. That I wasn’t there to prevent him from corrupting you into the monster you tried so hard to avoid being.”

“The only monster I wanted to avoid being was the one without my humanity that killed people, even just for fun and sport,” Stefan told her. “I never wanted you to protect me from my /good/ brother.”

Stefan ceded the floor for Damon again next so that he could show what happened in forty-two. Damon first showed when he initially brought up going with Stefan until Stefan stepped away to get their drinks and Lexi demanded that he not, but he ignored her. He showed a few more times that she tried to prevent him from going until they got to the ambush at the station. He watched Stefan’s reaction as he showed her manipulating Damon too, playing on his fears, playing on his love for his brother. Proving that Damon cared more about Stefan’s well-being than his own. And proving that Lexi knew that argument would work in the first place. “Why would you have even tried that argument if you thought I was as cruel and heartless and selfish as you convinced Stefan that I was?”

“I knew you weren’t. But that didn’t mean that you should have been around him. You would have undone all the progress I made with him. Just like you did in record time the one time I turned by back long enough for you to get your hooks in,” Lexi said.

“News flash, sweetheart. I was in the Mystic Falls area for thirty years. I stopped trying to get my brother back long before that. /He/ came to /me/ when his own eyes couldn’t deny the truth anymore. The truth that I wasn’t the monster you made me out to be. And you know what your biggest mistake was?” he asked wryly. “Convincing him that I never cared about anyone but myself and Katherine. No one could see my husband and I together and deny the profound love that we share. That was what finally snapped him out of it. This,” Damon pulled up his memory of dancing with Enzo at that pageant, both of them in their finery, looking at each other with pure devotion. He did that one, partially to show something good for once, partially because he wanted to see it himself, and partially to rub it in her face, suspecting that she was as much a homophobe as anything else.

Damon passed the ball back to Stefan, having said and shown everything he wanted to now, and Stefan headed back to the floor, having a few more questions. “How many other vampires have you twisted to your sick idea of morality?”

“Twenty-seven,” she couldn’t help but answer.

“How many are still alive?” he asked, knowing that he would have been dead a hundred times over with the attitude she instilled in him if not for Damon building up such a fearful reputation for himself in order to protect Stefan.

“Two. One if I’m not counting you anymore,” she said bitterly.

“Who is the other one and where can we find him?” Stefan asked, fully intending to at least try to save him.

Lexi visibly struggled in her attempt not to answer but she wasn’t given the option. “Lee Sanders. He’s in Atlanta, Georgia. He frequents Bree’s Bar run by our friend Bree Larson.” Damon’s eyebrow rose at that. He hadn’t seen Bree in quite a while and couldn’t remember if he’d ever mentioned Lexi to her or not during their short fling. It seemed like they would be reconnecting after all.

“The prosecution rests,” Stefan said after the nod from Damon in agreement.

“Do you have anything further to tell or show us in your defense?” Sheila asked Lexi.

“I do not recognize you as gods. I don’t recognize your right to judge me. Everything I have done has been for the greater good,” she said stubbornly.

“Very well,” Sheila waved a hand and sent her back to her cell so that they could deliberate. Damon and Stefan did contribute to the discussion but abstained from the vote. The guilty vote was unanimous among the other seven, but it was five to two regarding the death penalty. Elena and Caroline just weren’t comfortable sentencing someone to death for any reason. They argued for human imprisonment instead. They accepted when they were outvoted though, and wouldn’t dispute it or think any less of the others. When the discussion came over who would carry out the sentence, it was put to Damon and Stefan, but the latter passed. Damon was more than a little eager to do it anyway, but Stefan didn’t think he could stomach it. It was easy to talk about killing her, but actually going through with it was a different story.

Once it was all decided, Lexi was brought back into the chamber and Sheila told her, “You have been found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death.” She then motioned Damon to carry on and Damon charged up a strong lightning bolt that he then threw at her. All that was left of her was ash that a wave of his hand scattered out the window to be taken by the wind as the storm his emotions had going wound down.

Chapter Text

Once that unpleasantness was done, the group decided to spend the day in the palace. The weekend for most of them, in fact. They’d spent a few weekends there in the two and a half months since they left, so this may as well be one of them. Elena and Caroline would need to go home though. They’d made excuses for the day and couldn’t call from here to let Caroline’s mother and Elena’s aunt know they weren’t coming home. Sure, they could have sent a message through Henry, but explaining how the note just appeared on the table would have been complicated. And they, as usual, had to hope that no one tried to call them while they were there. The excuse of the phone battery dying would only work so many times. Especially since everyone else they would call to try and get through would have the same issue. Telling them they would be out of contact seemed to work well enough so far though. If they didn’t worry, they wouldn’t call around. Unless some emergency cropped up anyway. Stefan decided to go back with Elena that night, and even stayed at her house with her, as Jenna often allowed. Especially since she’d been told of the pregnancy.

The little hiccup in their routine went relatively unnoticed, save for Stefan, Damon, and Enzo taking the next weekend in Georgia. They hoped to find the last ripper in the world and get him set to rights, which meant heading to Bree’s bar to see an old familiar face. Stefan and Enzo had been refreshed on his past with Bree before they went, though Enzo did know about it in general. Just not that it was necessarily the same person. By then, they’d gotten the habit, and all could fly well enough, to teleport high into the air and then circle the area to find a secluded place to make the short jump to. Even if Damon’s jumps were accompanied by flashes of lightning in an otherwise clear sky. It wasn’t as though that was unheard of though.

When they walked into Bree’s Bar, her eyes widened and she jumped the counter, rushing over to them and, as something like payback, grabbed Damon in a searing kiss. One he amusedly returned, not worried about what Enzo would think about it. Hell, if not for the new fertility issue, they might even invite her to bed. Thankfully they’d figured that out before they slept with anyone but Sheila. Until they figured out a way to turn off their fertility, they would need to be careful with that and stick to Sheila for the moment. At least until the babies were born for as long as she was up to it. Once the toe-curling kiss ended, Damon laughingly introduced her to his husband and his brother, the former of which got a surprised raise of her eyebrow. And did quite a bit of good in her forgiving him over the past when she erroneously assumed that he was gay and had been trying to cover it up.

They headed to the bar, ordered a meal and drinks, and asked Bree about Lee, at which point she asked about Lexi since she hadn’t been heard from in a week, since she went to see Stefan. She was then updated on the whole thing…well…the public story of the whole thing. Stefan shaking off her brainwashing, confronting her about it, everything she’d admitted to and that she’d been killed for it. Now they were there to try to save the other vampire she had brainwashed. That was when Bree told them that he wasn’t just any other vampire. That they’d been ‘in love’. That she’d turned him to have eternity with him. That definitely changed things, and when Bree suggested that they leave and let her handle it, and get her some proof if they had any, they took her up on her advice. She would call them when and if Lee needed help to get back on human blood. There was a good chance that he would just walk out into the sun over this, as they would later find out had happened.

Once they got back home, they started talking plans for Thanksgiving. That Damon and Enzo would be spending it with the Bennetts was a given. They always did. This time, Stefan was invited to join them as well, but Stefan also wanted to spend the holiday with Elena, so they decided to invite Jenna and Jeremy as well, making it a big group thing. When it turned out that, not only was Caroline the only goddess left out that way, but also that her mother was working the holiday, she was obviously invited too. They would be doing it in the large dining room of the boarding house, and Damon even slyly suggested bring a feast from Olympus. Expose Jenna and Jeremy to the ancient fare. Though they would have to keep the mead away from them, of course. It would probably kill a human with as strongly as it hit the gods.

It was suggested to bring them in on the secrets before that, but they decided against it. A few days wasn’t enough time for them to come to terms with such a big thing before they had to go back to their normal lives after the holiday like nothing ever happened. Which nixed Damon’s feast idea. It was definitely on the table for Christmas though, which they planned to celebrate in the palace itself assuming Jenna and Jeremy didn’t completely freak out over the very idea. That meant they had a nice normal thanksgiving with nine gods and goddesses, and two humans present. And everyone who didn’t already lived there, stayed overnight since they were too stuffed to go home and there was more than enough room. They’d even gotten rooms cleaned up and dusted in advance and were nice enough to give Jenna and Jeremy the family suite. Elena was staying in Stefan’s room.

The three pregnancies in the group were just entering the second trimester by then, and they were all starting to show, but only if you were looking for it. Well, technically, Sheila was showing a bit more given that she was carrying twins, but it wasn’t uncommon for women to put on weight around the middle as they got older. That was much more likely than a pregnancy at her age, so unless she told people, they would assume it was extra weight for a while yet. She had an illusion pendant ready to put on when it was more noticeable though, and it would only be another two weeks before she noticed the looks that had her putting it on already. It only worked on humans though, so the rest of their group could see the truth.

So could a pair of twin witches though. Luke and Liv Parker. The Bennetts were friends of their family though, so they were let in on a cover story when they noticed, helped by the fact that Abby and Elena were pregnant too. They just called it a magical explosion that caused them all to get pregnant at the same time. Not entirely untrue even. Just leaving a lot out. They completely understood keeping hers under wraps for the sake of secrecy, and were polite enough not to ask about the father. The magical accident story would also hold for how all the babies had powers rather than just the children of the witch. Abby’s kids wouldn’t have otherwise given her vampirism, and Elena had just been a human to start with.

As the end of their first college semester came up, they were all feeling very good about their progress. As Damon confirmed when he gave them all a heads up that they’d gotten As in his class even before the grades went out. Their enhanced mental capacity made it pretty much a given, and if not for the babies, they probably would have all overloaded their schedules the next semester now that they had their feet wet. Finishing their bachelor’s in two years would still be notable though. Only Stefan and Bonnie were fully committed so far to continuing on. Stefan was planning to get his doctorate in applied physics, and take a few engineering classes to catch him up on advancements in the last fifty years since he got his master’s in that. Bonnie was going to get her doctorate in ecology, figuring it would be needed eventually to heal the planet and she was the goddess of animals after all. Henry was debating going as far as his master’s in business, but wouldn’t likely go farther than that. The rest of them were good with the bachelor’s and would call it quits there. They would have plenty of lifetimes available to study anything more that they wanted to. And lifetimes where they wouldn’t have babies to take care of.

That was also why the current four teachers were considering retiring after the current school year. They would have to have their decisions in by the time classes restarted on January tenth and it would be discussed over Christmas. They could start preparing for their new lives a bit earlier than intended and have more time to spend with their babies when they were young. Maybe even have a few more in the process. Something to decide much later. First though, they had to get through the telling of their secrets to Elena’s family, which would be done during a big gathering at the boarding house the first day of Jeremy’s winter break a week after theirs started. At least the gathering would start at the boarding house. It would almost certainly end up in the palace.

Chapter Text

Elena had decided not to officially move into the boarding house until after they explained everything to Jenna and Jeremy. So they would be able to understand better. Which meant they kept the status quo for the week in between when college let out for winter break and when high school did. Jeremy’s first free day, Jenna and Jeremy came over to the boarding house a little after noon. Elena wasn’t about to ask Jeremy to get out of bed before noon on the first day of winter break. She wasn’t cruel. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that Stefan and Elena would be the only ones there for the initial talk at which point, when Jenna and Jeremy didn’t believe them, they would be brought to the palace where everyone else would be waiting with a nice meal in the social hall set up as a dining room.

Stefan and Elena were more than a little nervous as they waited for Jenna and Jeremy to arrive, and once they did, they sat them down on the couch to talk. “Is this about you two moving in together?” Jenna asked curiously. She’d gotten more comfortable with the idea over the last few months, but still didn’t think it was a good one. Not if it was just for the baby. They’d only been dating for a little more than a year and they were so young.

“No, actually. I mean…tangentially kinda, but mostly no,” Elena shook her head.

“See, something amazing happened to us over the summer. Something that contributed to the pregnancy, in fact,” Stefan started.

“You should probably know first that there are people other than humans in the world,” Elena explained. “Witches, vampires…and gods.”

“If you’re just going to make up things to justify this sort of decision,” Jenna started getting irritated.

“We’re not making anything up,” Stefan shook his head. “I was a vampire. I shouldn’t have been /able/ to get anyone pregnant. Vampires are completely sterile.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jenna huffed and got up to leave, pulling Jeremy with her. She could accept their decision, no matter that she disagreed with it, but pulling these kinds of stories was different.

“Well…we wanted to get a little more of the explanation out before resorting to this, but if you’re going to be stubborn,” Elena sighed and grabbed Jenna, disappearing with her while Stefan did the same with Jeremy. Both of them just had everyday normal teleportation without the flashy effects that some had.

“Wh-what ha-happened?” Jenna asked in shock as she looked around. “Wh-where are we?”

“We’re in the palace of Mount Olympus. The home of the gods,” Stefan answered. They’d brought them into the entrance hall/temple rather than straight to the dining hall. They didn’t want to take any chances of a bad reaction for humans to be brought straight in, bypassing the safeguards set up for them. They knew that they could bring them in from here, thanks to the thrones giving them that knowledge, but the original Olympians had never even considered bringing humans directly through, so they weren’t sure what it would do.

“See, as we were trying to explain, our research expedition over the summer led us here. The magic inherent in both witches and vampires that made up most of our group allowed us past the wards keeping people away. There was a strange confluence of events once we made it through, but the end result had us all being judged and transformed into gods,” Elena explained. “I’m the goddess of hearth and home. That’s what this new tattoo you’ve been asking about on my neck symbolizes,” she gestured to the fire in the bowl symbol.

“And I’m the god of crafting, building, and smithing,” Stefan explained. “Hence my ‘tattoo’ of two crossed hammers.”

“This is…completely insane,” Jenna said with wide eyes.

“This is completely /awesome/,” Jeremy couldn’t help but exclaim. He hadn’t known what to think before, but now that it was clear they were telling the truth, it was great. His sister was a goddess. There had to be some kind of perks associated with that.

“Everyone else is waiting in the dining hall for a nice lunch where we can all explain a little better,” Elena offered.

“Y-yeah. Please,” Jenna nodded, needing a moment to wrap her head around all this. Now that she knew it wasn’t just a story they were making up, she was inclined to agree with Jeremy, but it definitely still needed some processing.

During the walk, Jeremy was throwing out rapid fire questions while Jenna just took it all in. Once they got to the social hall, they paused in the doorway and took in who all else was here before continuing to the table. Caroline had arranged the seating so that Jenna could be next to Sheila and across from Damon and Enzo, with Henry at the head of the table and Abby next to her mother in between. Elena was, of course, next to Jenna with Stefan across from her and Jeremy on her other side with the ‘teens’ on Jeremy’s end of the table. Bonnie next to him and Caroline across from her next to Stefan. She’d figured that Jenna would be more interested in the insights of the older group while Jeremy would more appreciate the younger, and that they could both do with staying close to Elena after the revelation.

“What is this?” she asked as she looked at all the food around the table.

“This is the ancient food that the gods kept stored and preserved,” Damon answered.

“Henry here, as the god of trade among other things, can duplicate it so we’ll never run out,” Enzo said.

“It’s delicious. We promise,” Sheila told her, with a comforting hand on her arm, knowing that she must be overwhelmed right now.

“This is nothing compared to the feast we put out on holidays for for random parties,” Henry felt the need to add.

“What are the rest of you the gods and goddesses of?” Jeremy asked, already making his plate. That answer went around the table and kicked off the conversation that led to the full explanation of how this happened, why them, what happened to the old gods, and even a bit about vampires and witches thrown in there and who was what before this happened. By then, the revelation that Sheila was pregnant too, wasn’t particularly surprising.

Once the meal was over, Jenna and Jeremy got a tour of the palace, including meeting the pegasi, which ended up taking the longest since everything else they were just looking in and moving on. They wanted to spend a bit of time with the animals long thought myth though. They’d had a break for a quick dinner for the humans’ sake before heading to the outside areas lit up by the full moon, so by the time they were able to drag them away from the pegasi, they were both exhausted. They hadn’t realized how late it got. Elena, naturally, invited them to stay the night. She’d already turned her and Stefan’s rooms into a suite, having control over changing the living areas just as Caroline did over the social hall and everyone else did over their own areas of expertise. Elena had moved into Hephaestus’ old room with Stefan overlooking the courtyard, but now there were two more bedrooms attached with a small sitting area connecting them.

Neither Jenna nor Jeremy were ready for this ‘dream’ to end just yet, so gladly took her up on the offer and once they were in bed the rest of the gods gathered to discuss Elena’s other request. They’d wanted to meet Jenna and get to know her before deciding whether to bring her in as another goddess. Not that it was /entirely/ their decision. She would have to be judged by the powers of the remaining gods and see if she was chosen. They weren’t sure if the fact that their sexes all lined up with the previous occupants of their positions were by design or coincidence, but if it was by design, then there was only one option for her, and not even Elena could be sure if her personality would fit the remaining goddess. Everyone always had hidden depths after all.

The fact that everyone had liked her and thought they could work well with her decided them to give her a chance. Not that working well together was a requirement given some of the legends of the old gods and the feuds they had, but they did hope to keep things as cordial as possible among them. Jenna was a very good fit. The perfect balance between practicality and fun. Which meant that they would offer her the chance in the morning. Jeremy would be a different story at his age and would be discussed when and if Jenna was one of them so that she could be in on the conversation.

Chapter Text

By the next morning, when Jenna woke up still in the opulent palace and realized that it wasn’t a dream, she was more than ready to accept the offer she got over breakfast. This really was amazing, but she would try not to be disappointed if she wasn’t accepted. Jeremy wasn’t up yet, which meant that he didn’t have to be put off when he wanted to join in too. Which was also why they wanted to get it done before he woke up, so after breakfast they went straight to the throne room and Jenna was directed to stand in the center circle while the other nine took their thrones and started the process.

Jenna saw all her memories, thoughts, and feelings flash before her eyes as the magic judged her and she felt it find her worthy just before all went dark. Once she collapsed to the floor, Elena rushed over to check on her. “She has the mark of Hera,” Elena said once she was sure of a pulse. She knew that Enzo had foreseen as much, but they weren’t really used to putting much stock in his prophecies. Nor was he, really.

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Enzo said relieved. Part of the reason he’d been so eager to give her a chance. The goddess of childbirth would be much more fitting to deliver the babies that he would have had to do by default as the god of healing. Naturally he would still be there assisting, but at least he wouldn’t have to be in the hot seat.

“I’ll take her up to her room to sleep it off,” Elena said as she picked her up. They weren’t sure how long she would be out for. They still didn’t know how long /they/ had been out for when it happened to them. Though theirs had been accompanied by a rather extreme burst of magic in general, so she may not take as long as they did. Since they were waiting for two people to wake up by then, they all hung around the common room. Enzo got some music going, and the ‘human’ booze was passed around for those that wanted it, and juice, milk, or water was available for those that didn’t. Abby could only create natural foods and drinks. Not processed things like soda. They all found that the taste of the processed foods and drinks left a lot to be desired anymore, so they didn’t really mind.

Jeremy was up first and came downstairs sleepily, but woke up soon enough and joined the almost party. He munched on some snacks for his ‘lunch’, but wasn’t too fond of the drink offerings. Since no one would give him any of the booze anyway. Those that wouldn’t have cared were overridden by those who did. Jeremy was sixteen and didn’t need to be drinking casually. Even though he did with his friends. While getting Vicki out of his life, which also helped him understand that he’d been a victim, had kept him from going down a dark spiral, he still preferred to drink, smoke weed, and party. At least he had gotten back to his art after his slump following the loss of his parents which helped a lot.

When Jeremy was concerned about Jenna ‘still sleeping’ Elena told him how they’d made her a goddess too and that her body was adjusting to her new powers. Damon amusedly added that it was the last sleep she would ever have, so she could sleep as long as she wanted. Which was only partially accurate. They could settle into a state of meditation that was something like sleep, dreams included when they went deep enough, but it wasn’t actual sleep. That, of course, got Jeremy chomping at the bit to become a god too, but he was just told that they would discuss it and get back to him. Since it wasn’t a no, he happily took it. He would save any further argument for if it did end up being no.

In order to distract him from the idea, Bonnie decided to offer him a ride on the pegasi. Let him see what it was like to fly. He would have to ride with her since they wouldn’t carry humans without a god, and they listened better to her than to anyone else given her dominion over them. Elena just told them to be careful, as Jeremy bounded happily out after her. Caroline waited until they were gone to tell the rest of the group, “They’re /very/ compatible.”

“You don’t mean…” Elena’s eyes widened.

“I mean, nothing’s definite and it’s up to them whether they start anything, but their auras are a perfect match,” Caroline grinned.

“Which means he’d probably end up joining us anyway,” Damon pointed out.

“I already told you that,” Enzo said amusedly. He’d seen Jeremy sitting on a throne alongside them. Taking the role of Dionysus. That had come through even clearer than Jenna’s inclusion which was a bit cloudy. The biggest question was whether to do it now or not. Which Jenna would be a part of deciding.

It hadn’t been long after Jeremy and Bonnie went for their ride/flight that Jenna came down, completely refreshed and vibrating with power. “Welcome to the pantheon, Jenna,” Sheila told her kindly. “You are the new goddess of family, women, and childbirth.”

“Wow,” Jenna’s eyes widened. “That’s…wow.” She wouldn’t have expected that particular designation. Though she did feel very strongly about the ties of family, which was why she’d specialized in family counseling with her psych degree. She was also a proponent women’s rights and equality. She wanted desperately to be a mom someday, but not necessarily anytime soon. She supposed it fit, even if she might have preferred something a little more ‘fun’. But she could still have fun though, as evidenced by the stories of them all partying.

“Come on. We should get you to your new throne so you can get the tutorial on your new powers and then we can unseal your portions of the palace,” Damon gestured her to follow him. She spent a good half hour communing with the throne before coming out of it.

“I can open up the big nursery and a portion of the gardens set up as wedding chapel,” she told everyone.

“Well that will come in handy,” Abby chuckled. Both of them really since she and Henry were engaged now. They hadn’t really started planning a wedding, but having one here presided over by the goddess of such things sounded perfect to her. Judging by the look Henry gave her, he liked the idea too, but they would talk about it later. She wanted to wait until the spring anyway. Not only was that her favorite season, but they could do it after the baby was born too. After /all/ the babies were born that were due at the end of March.

As they walked, heading to the nursery first, they talked about her powers. They were all glad to hear that she was able to affect people’s fertility. Which meant that she could make them infertile until they were ready to have children. Something that everyone would be taking her up on, though the pregnant women would have to wait until after their babies were born. Assuming they didn’t want to have anymore right away. Once the nursery was unlocked, they all went inside and looked around. There was space for twenty-five babies and six rooms for parents off the sides of the room. While they were all relatively sure they would be keeping the babies with them in their usual rooms during the nights, the daytime when they would all be babysat together, this would be the perfect place for it.

Each of the cribs had little educational mobile type toys hanging above them and there was a play area in the center of the room. They knew from the information they’d received that there would be no need for diapers, but unlike the grown gods, as long as their bodies were growing and developing, they would need food and sleep. Just not as much as human babies. And that would go for Jeremy too if he ended up joining them at his current age for another year or two until he reached full maturity. It was as they were leaving that room, headed for the gardens that she would need to open, that Elena passed on Jeremy’s request. While Jenna’s initial reaction was to say no. Not until he was at least eighteen and graduated high school, she was convinced to discuss it. It wasn’t the time right now, but some of them did have good points to make in favor of not waiting. Those would be discussed after he was in bed for the night. Especially since he met back up with them in the gardens, fresh from the most exhilarating experience of his life. Even the fact that he spent the flight holding the girl he’d had a crush on for years paled in comparison to flying through the sky on a pegasus.

Chapter Text

Once Jeremy had crashed for the night, the group got around to discussing his inclusion. “Tell me why you think it’s a good idea to give my sixteen year old nephew godlike power?” Jenna asked with a raised eyebrow.

“From what I understand, that might just be the only way he graduates high school at this point,” Damon pointed out.

“And you can, of course, make that a condition of allowing this,” Sheila added.

“The boost to his mental capacity would make schoolwork a breeze,” Enzo told her.

“He’s not stupid. He’s just unmotivated,” Jenna said defensively.

“No we know,” Abby was quick to say. “That wasn’t what they meant. Just that, when it’s so easy, it’s much easier to just take the time to knock it out so he can move on to things that he enjoys more.”

“Yeah, if he doesn’t have to work for it, he’d be more likely to finish it,” Stefan clarified.

“I don’t know if that’s the best message to send though,” Jenna frowned. “He needs to learn how to work for things.”

“He does,” Bonnie pointed out. “He works hard at his art. Learning new techniques and mediums. He’s just not interested in the academic stuff and there’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone’s different.”

“We all agree that he needs to at least graduate high school, but that sort of stuff just doesn’t matter to him. He just needs to walk a different path, so getting him through the obligations as painlessly as possible is a good thing,” Caroline chimed in.

“I guess I see your points,” Jenna sighed. “But that kind of power in someone so young…”

“These babies will have power from birth,” Elena put her hand over her distended stomach. “If they can handle it, so can he.”

“And a kick-start to the maturity does come with the power boost,” Henry pointed out, having seen it in all three of the younger girls. Less so with Bonnie who had always been more mature than her friends given the responsibility of the magic she grew up with, but even then it was noticeable.

“And you said you’ve foreseen him as part of the pantheon?” Jenna asked Enzo wearily. “At this age?”

“It’s hard to tell his age from my vision, but Elena, Abby, and Sheila were all noticeably pregnant in it. It could be later pregnancies, but it would mean they’d intentionally sync up pregnancies again, and not include Bonnie and Caroline, which doesn’t seem particularly likely,” Enzo answered.

“I suppose who am I to argue with fate then,” she caved. “But there will be conditions and I hope you will all help me enforce those conditions should he try to go back on the deal.” She knew that the next two weeks that he would be out of school would be enough for him to learn how to use and control his powers, so if they were going to do it, it needed to be now. Or in the morning to be clear. Otherwise they wouldn’t have another chance until summer which would be after the babies were born.

The group spent the rest of the time before Jeremy woke up discussing those conditions, especially considering which god’s powers he would be taking in, but they had good requirements in place by the time Jeremy stumbled sleepily down the stairs. They waited until he was a little more awake and halfway through breakfast before Jenna told him, “I will allow you to join the pantheon, BUT…” she cut him off before he could get too excited. “There will be conditions that you have to agree to in advance, and will be enforced by everyone here.”

“What kind of conditions?” Jeremy asked worriedly.

“First of all, you finish high school,” Jenna said seriously. “You actually go to school when you’re supposed to, and do your homework on time.”

“There will be an allowance of one day a month, at your discretion, that you can skip school,” Damon told him the condition that he’d argued for, saying that everyone needed a break sometimes and once a month that school was in session, since he wouldn’t need any sick days or anything else, wasn’t unreasonable. “And to be there for the birth of your niece will be an extra.”

“And it won’t be as bad you think. You’ll get a major boost to your mental capacity, so the work will be effortless. Homework that might have taken an hour before, won’t take more than ten minutes,” Enzo added.

“Plus you won’t need much sleep, if any, so you’ll have plenty of other time to do whatever you want,” Elena chimed in.

“But I won’t have to go to college or anything?” Jeremy asked thoughtfully. He could live with having to finish high school, no matter how annoying it was.

“No. That’s completely up to you. Though I would hope that you would continue studying /something/ even if it’s just on your own time. And art is a perfectly acceptable thing to study,” Jenna told him.

“Yeah, that I can do,” Jeremy chuckled. “And I suppose I’ll finish high school too,” he sighed. Two and a half more years would suck.

“Another condition is that secrecy is paramount. No showing off any powers or telling our secrets. You have to keep up appearances as a normal human,” Jenna told him firmly. “Which also means following reasonable laws.”

“What reasonable laws?” Jeremy asked with a frown.

“Drinking and smoking weed and the like yourself is one thing, but you don’t start dealing. You don’t pressure anyone into anything, be it alcohol, drugs, or sex. No drugs other than weed at least until after you graduate high school and preferably ever. You don’t drive if you’ve been drinking or smoking for appearance sake, even if you’re fine, and you do your best to keep others with you from doing so either,” Jenna explained.

“Okay, I can agree to all that,” Jeremy nodded. “But I’m allowed to drink and smoke without you being on my case about it all the time.”

“As long as you don’t let it interfere with your agreed-upon responsibilities,” Jenna countered. He would be rather surprised to find that it would be all but impossible for him to get drunk or high by human means and no one would give him access to the things that could affect him outside of their own parties. Mostly because those things could easily kill a human even in small amounts, and no one was going to trust him to keep them secure.

“Agreed,” Jeremy nodded. “Anything else?”

“You’ll have more freedom, given your invulnerability and the fact that you won’t need as much sleep or good nutrition, but in return, you have to let me know where you’ll be and when you’ll be home and stick to it,” Jenna said firmly. She would be able to reach out with her power to find him, just as they all could with each other, and she wouldn’t hesitate to embarrass him by going after him if he forced her hand.

“That’s a good trade,” Jeremy could agree to that. More freedom would never go amiss, and he could live with checking in. Especially since he would have the ability to teleport so wouldn’t have to worry about travel time.

“Then let’s go do this,” Damon said as they got up from the table. A few minutes later Jeremy was unconscious with the mark of Dionysus, a bunch of grapes, stark on his neck. It was Jenna that picked him up and took him to bed. In his new room that had once belonged to Dionysus. She then used her new transport power to head back to Mystic Falls to pack them both bags and get word out they were taking a trip through the holiday season and would be back in time for Jeremy to go back to school on January third. She was back long before he woke up, and left his bag of clothes and his everyday art supplies on the chair next to his bed. Her bag went into her new rooms that had once been Hera’s.

Once Jeremy woke up, he was welcomed as the new god of inebriation, art, and gaiety as he was led to his new throne. He too spent a good half an hour communing with it, before he excitedly jumped up, heading for the art studio to get it unlocked, and he had a new favorite place. It took a while to drag him out of there so he could unlock the wine cellar too. The mead was kept with the general food, but the wine was separate and some of them wanted very much to try the godly wines. That and they were planning a party to start asap to welcome the new god and goddess to their ranks. Just like they’d had a party for themselves just after they’d been elevated. As soon as Jeremy was told that, he happily opened the wine cellar and duplicated a few bottles of wine to take up for the party. He could get back to the studio tomorrow. Jeremy was actually surprised at how much fun he had partying with them. Especially since no one was trying to moderate his consumption and just let him have fun. The food was delicious and the wine even more so. He even enjoyed the mead, but preferred the wine.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days, everyone was in and out for Christmas shopping, which they would henceforth call Yule, though still celebrate it the same way secularly. Most of the traditions had come from paganism anyway once the religion was stripped from it and none of them had been very religious to begin with. Caroline was in and out the most since she still had her mother, even though Liz was working more often than not. The rest of them didn’t have any close ties outside the group. Another reason to celebrate Yule instead since it was a few days early meaning Caroline could still be with her mother for Christmas. The only holiday the sheriff took off.

There was no mention of telling her anything about all this though. Not only were she and Caroline not very close, but the fact that she’d been part of a hate group dedicated to eradicating anything non-human for so long before it had been compelled away meant that they weren’t about to trust her with the knowledge of what they were. In fact, Caroline planned to move into the boarding house over the summer. Her mother had asked her to live at home for her first year of college once she realized that she was staying in Mystic Falls anyway, and she’d capitulated before the whole god mess happened. Had she known, she wouldn’t have agreed, but felt the need to live up to her promise once it was made.

The holiday came with a giant living tree growing out of the floor of the social hall rather than being cut down. There were dozens of presents underneath, a lot of them for the unborn babies. There was a fire merrily crackling in an oversized fireplace on one wall and a huge feast laid out on the tables. There was an ensemble of instruments on the stage playing ancient Yule music, and decorations all around the hall. They were all in the hall by the time the sun came up. Even Jeremy found that, after his change, he was good with only a couple hours of sleep a night. He, like everyone else, still enjoyed eating enough that he had no idea how much food he actually needed since he’d yet to get actually hungry, but that didn’t really matter.

The first thing they did was have some hot chocolate and cookies in front of the fire as the presents were all passed out and leisurely opened. Thanks to their telekinesis, no one even had to move. A present was just floated over, the tag was read, and it was handed to the person it was for. Or the parents of the unborn baby it was for. They all knew the sexes by then, so there wasn’t a concern there. Stefan and Elena were having a girl, as were Abby and Henry. Sheila was having fraternal twin boys. No one was sharing any names yet, if they’d decided themselves, so they couldn’t be personalized though. That was for next year for their first Yule.

Since they were taking their time, it was noon before the presents were done and they moved on to the feast which turned into a party. One that wasn’t much different than their usual parties. Other than the fact that Jeremy and Bonnie ended up having their first kiss. One she was suddenly worried that Elena would be mad at her for once it was over, but Elena just gave her a grinning thumbs up when she caught her eye. Bonnie and Jeremy were the only ones that didn’t know about the potential between them, and Caroline had been doing her thing and playing matchmaker for days by then. Since everyone was supportive enough, they decided to give it a show. Especially once Bonnie realized that Caroline had been trying to put them together, even suggesting Bonnie taking him for a fly that first day, and figured out what that meant.

By the time Jenna and Jeremy were going home on January second, they both had a handle on their powers and were able to fly. Jeremy was disappointed to find that he was only allowed to have the good booze and herbs in the palace, but they would be going at least one weekend a month. Granted, he had the ability to create it as he wished, and probably would sometimes, but only when he was alone at home and wanted a good buzz. He was fully aware that even one sip or one toke could kill a human and wouldn’t take any chances. Even if he just brought his own to a party, the second hand smoke or just someone picking up the wrong cup of booze could be a disaster.

He did mostly hold to the deal he’d made with Jenna, though there were a few slips here and there. He’d forget a piece of homework every so often or take an extra skip day, but school was pretty much effortless now. And the fact that he was making an effort meant that Jenna didn’t bug him too hard about it when it happened. She’d even let him turn Elena’s room into a home art studio when she moved in with Stefan. Jenna was much more comfortable with the idea as she learned, not only about the maturity boost that came with the powers, but also the fact that Caroline could see their bonds of love and that they were strong with excellent compatibility. Combined with the fact that she’d been let in on the whole thing and that she was guaranteed to stay close to Elena, it helped a lot. Part of her fear had been losing touch as Elena moved out and started her own family, but now that they shared this huge part of their lives, she wasn’t so worried anymore.

The college group were back to class a week later, and Damon, Enzo, Abby, and Sheila had decided to ‘retire’ after this school year. They would take the bulk of the baby care so that the rest of the group could finish the one more year it would take to get their bachelor’s degrees at which point they would be starting ‘new lives’. The fact that they could affect their appearance would make a huge difference. They couldn’t look completely different, but they could make themselves age and de-age. They would all be going back to twenty to fit in with the younger group. Since Jenna was only a few years older, she would be waiting until the next ‘reset’ to start over. She hadn’t even started her career yet, but would by summer, opening up a family therapy practice in Mystic Falls in the old medical clinic. She would have successfully defended her dissertation by the time the babies were born.

Jenna would be covering any gaps in baby care for the last two months of the college school year after they were born, which was just a few hours in the afternoons. They had all done up their schedules with this in mind, so some of them had the bulk of their classes in the morning and some in the afternoon. The teachers were easier since they could set their own hours. The class period directly after lunch was the unavoidable overlap, so Jenna would have the four babies for those two hours as the only one not in school, and would be at the boarding house for it since that was where all their stuff would be.

It was February when Caroline was able to tell the parentage of Sheila’s twins, and had to do a bit of research to believe what she was seeing before she took it to them. “One twin is Damon’s son, and the other twin is Enzo’s son. I didn’t even know that twins could have different fathers,” she said amusedly.

“Fraternal twins can. Identical twins can’t. Barring some magical effect that is,” Sheila felt the need to clarify. There wasn’t much that wasn’t possible for magic. Especially the magic of the gods. Basically just bringing people back to life who had been dead for more than an hour or so was the hard limit. Much to the dismay of those who’d hoped that they could get lost loved ones back. Especially Elena, Jeremy, and Jenna.

“They’re both still all our sons regardless, but it is nice to know that we’re both passing on our genes,” Enzo basically summed up his and Damon’s view on it. They were just as eager as ever for the babies to be born in less than two months and they weren’t the only ones wondering what kind of powers these babies would grow into. If they would be related to the powers of their parents or if they would end up with the powers of the secondary Greek gods. Or even some combination of both. It would definitely be an adventure to find out though and they all loved adventure. Which was how they ended up in this situation in the first place even.

Chapter Text

Sheila was the first to go into labor, as expected with twins, on March fourteenth. Two weeks before the due date. Thankfully it started in the evening, and she’d moved into the boarding house a month earlier once Stefan finished the work to make their suites connected by the nursery. That meant that she was right where she needed to be. Damon and Enzo were by her side in half a second, getting the plastic covers on her bed and helping her into it while Elena called Jenna who was quick to teleport over. Followed by everyone else who didn’t live there who didn’t want to miss it. The rest of them wouldn’t be in the room though.

Enzo went back and forth between assisting with the birth and taking a support role for Sheila, while Damon was fully in the support role, but did take a few chances to move and watch the babies coming out when Enzo was holding Sheila’s other hand. Surprisingly to all, it didn’t actually hurt. Just an uncomfortable feeling of pressure. Apparently another perk to being goddesses which she absolutely wasn’t going to complain about. It took a couple hours for the first baby to be born, accompanied by Enzo’s lyrical chants to help it along. Jenna handed him off to Enzo to get cleaned up and swaddled while she waited for the second one. By the time he was out, Enzo had handed the first baby off to Damon and Sheila, so he could take care of the second one. It wasn’t long after that before it was all over.

Sheila did still need a bit to rest, so Damon and Enzo took the babies downstairs to meet everyone else. And to find out from Caroline which one was which so they could name them correctly. They could sense the differences in their spirits, so they wouldn’t have to worry about mixing them up once they had the names settled even though they currently looked basically identical, both with tufts of black hair on their heads. They headed down, each carrying a baby, and they got rushed by people eager to get a look at them. “What are their names?” Stefan was the first to act, awed by the sight of his nephews and scarcely believing he would have one of his own before too much longer.

“Which one of us is the father of which, Blondie?” Damon asked Caroline.

“You’re holding Enzo’s son and he’s holding yours,” Caroline answered.

“Then this is Damian Apollo Saint John,” Damon said about the baby in his arms as he handed him to Stefan to hold.

“And this is Lorenzo Zeus Salvatore,” Enzo introduced the other one, letting Abby hold him first as their sister. Since they were both boys they got the names of their fathers, and they decided to honor the old gods that they got their powers from in the middle names.

It wasn’t long after they were handed off though that they started fussing and then Lorenzo disappeared with a burst of wind, causing quite the alarm. Until Sheila yelled down, “He’s up here!” A second later, another yell came. “They both are!”

“Yeah, we’re definitely gonna have to do something about that,” Damon snorted amusedly as everyone trudged up the stairs. Everything was cleaned up and Sheila was covered up by then. Aside from her breasts which each had a baby attached to them. “Apparently they were hungry.”

“I think I know why the Olympians used the main nursery now,” Jenna said amusedly. “It has wards to keep them from doing that.”

“Can you put those wards up here?” Enzo asked hopefully.

“I would suggest just doing the nurseries. They’ll prevent us from going in and out too,” Jenna pointed out.

“What about taking them out places? I mean, we can’t just keep them locked up in the nurseries all the time,” Elena asked, hand protectively over her own distended belly.

“I can come up with something to modify that ward into something they can wear,” Sheila told them, knowing exactly the one that Jenna was talking about. Something that the Olympians probably didn’t worry about given that they wouldn’t have been likely to take their babies out of the palace. And the entire palace had wards, once they were old enough, to keep them on the grounds until their powers were fully mature. “It might take me a few days though, and it would block all their powers so they shouldn’t wear it for more than a few hours a day.”

“That’s fine, luv,” Enzo assured her. “We were all going to take a week for the babies anyway.” They would be having their TAs take care of their classes for the week. Abby and Henry, and Stefan and Elena would be doing the same when theirs came along for bonding purposes. And all three women would be pumping breast milk once they went back to school/work for these last couple months.

Damon, Enzo, and Sheila went back to work, with schedules that allowed Damon to stay with them for the first period of classes, Enzo to do so for the second, Jenna would have them after lunch, and Sheila for the later afternoon session. It would have been impossible without the ability to teleport, and they’d even found an out of the way closet room to come in and out of in their class building, rather than having to use the apartment and drive. With the tighter schedules it was rather necessary. They had been back for a week when Elena went into labor next. And she did so right in the middle of class. At least it was Enzo’s class, so he was able to help her out to the teleportation room, and take her home, not trusting her ability to do so in the current state. Damon took her over from there, making the necessary calls to those who weren’t in school, plus Stefan who would be taking off classes for the birth of course. By the time Enzo was headed back to finish up his class, Jenna had already arrived, being the first call.

Everyone was home for the day before little Stefani Hestia Salvatore greeted the world. And this time, when Stefan brought her down, the little elastic ankle bracelets were already ready so they didn’t have to deal with a disappearing baby in the middle of the introductions. Stefan handed her to Damon to hold first, and then to Jeremy, her two closest uncles, before she started getting fussy for food and he took her back to Elena. Everyone else could have their turn afterwards. It was only a few days after that when the next baby joined them, living at the Bennett house of course with Abby and Henry, so everyone gathered there. That couple had decided to just use the first names to honor the old gods too, so her name was Hermione Demi Bennett. For Hermes and Demeter.

Despite taking a week off school, Stefan, Elena, and Henry were easily able to catch back up. The babies were still sleeping quite a bit for the first two weeks and they hadn’t really fallen behind in the first place with the syllabuses to go by. They just hadn’t attended the actual classes, so all was good. They had their schedules arranged too, so now that there were four babies, there was more than one person at any given time to watch them. Except for the two hours that Jenna had them alone. Between the fact that they’d arranged nap time then, once they were down to a single nap a day after the first few weeks, and the fact that babies were Jenna’s specialty, she didn’t have any problems. While Hermione was living at home, her days were spent in the Salvatore house and the nursery for the twins had extra cribs for the girls too for when they were all together. Which was also why that nursery had a door to the hallway too instead of just to the two suites on either side.

They had been right about four godly babies being an adventure. While they could only teleport within the nursery, they greatly enjoyed hopping between cribs and people. If not for the fact that they were as invulnerable as an adult god, they might be worried about them missing a mark and falling, but they didn’t seem to want to risk that either because they always landed safely either on someone’s lap or in a crib. Another thing they enjoyed was using their telekinesis. Especially when someone wasn’t fast enough with a bottle. There were many times that they had barely gotten the bottle warmed up when it was flying across the room to land in a little mouth. They took it all in stride though, finding it more amusing than frustrating.

The ankle bracelets were only used when they were out in public of course, since using them too often while their powers were growing in wasn’t good for them. And they generally only went out in public for a couple hours at a time a few times a week, so it wasn’t a concern. While they wanted to show them off around town, they also didn’t want the townspeople to get too used to seeing them. They planned to spend the summer at the palace and possibly end up commuting from there for the students next year. They still had time to decide that though.

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Once summer came, most of them did decide to move into the palace while the kids grew up, and the students would just commute from there to school. Sheila also agreed to carry one more child each for Damon and Enzo, and after a game of rock paper scissors that Enzo won, he knocked Sheila up again. That summer saw Abby and Henry married by Jenna in the garden chapel with Bonnie as maid of honor and Damon standing with Henry. Damon and Enzo also renewed their marriage with the magical bonds a few months later with Stefan and Henry standing with them respectively. Stefan and Elena would marry the following summer with Damon and Caroline as their wedding party, not long after Cassandra Athena Bennett was born. By then the older kids were toddling so they had two ring bearers and two flower girls, not that they were old enough to do a very good job yet, but they sure looked adorable trying. And by then, the Olympians were complete as well.

Jenna and Jeremy stayed in Mystic Falls for one more year, so that he could finish high school before they moved there to see the kids grow up too. Elena didn’t go back to finish her degree, since her intended field didn’t actually need a degree in the first place, but the rest of the students did. Bonnie spent more time in the area to be with Jeremy and they would move in together at the palace after they both finished their last years of school. Henry would only finish the one more year for his business degree and decided against going for his masters just yet. He could always go back later on, and he wanted to be close to little Hermione. Stefan would continue on to his doctorate in applied physics, which would be a bigger help to him in his crafting and inventing, but always made plenty of time for Elena and little Stefani.

By the time they all moved there after Jeremy, Henry, Caroline, and Bonnie graduated, they had two more people coming. Caroline had found love with a perfectly compatible student at school named Jesse who graduated with her. He wasn’t let in on the secret until they end of the year when they were ready to fully commit and he was brought to Mount Olympus after graduation and received the powers of Ares. The god of war. They had come to a compromise regarding Caroline’s mother. She’d already cut her father out of her life since he’d essentially cut her out aside from leaving her money and the house. Liz was different though. While she’d never had much time for her daughter, she did, at least, make an effort. So she was just compelled not to notice anything supernatural and brought to the palace for the wedding. And Caroline’s kids would always wear their power blockers on the short visits with her until they were old enough to know better than to use their powers. Which didn’t happen before cancer, unfortunately, took her.

Jenna also found love in a renewed flame. Once Mason Lockwood came back to town to help out after his brother’s heart attack the August after the first babies were born, they decided to give things another try. That decision was helped by Caroline letting Jenna know that they had a perfect compatibility. He was also let in on the secret once Jeremy graduated and received the powers of Poseidon, much to his joy given how much he loved the ocean. And he was very happy to be able to teleport to any ocean in the world to find and even create the best waves to surf. The only hint of the werewolf heritage that was avoided before he could activate it was in his spirit animal once he learned to shapeshift. It was a rather large dire wolf.

All the couples decided to have another child then so they could grow up together. Sheila was carrying Damon’s daughter, who would be named Zoe Althea Bennett and be born not long before Abby and Henry’s son Demetrius Hermes Wattles. They had wanted to wait for everyone else. Stefan and Elena’s son joined the nursery as did Jenna and Mason’s twin boys, Bonnie and Jeremy’s daughter, and Caroline and Jesse’s daughter. They were followed a year later by Jenna and Mason’s twin girls, Bonnie and Jeremy’s son, and Caroline and Jesse’s son. They ended up continuing the Bennett tradition that boys would be given their father’s surname while girls would get their mother’s.

They all continued their professions to some degree even though they were living in the palace. Most of them were part time as they raised their children though. Jenna worked half days two or three days a week at the clinic that she’d dreamed of, though not in Mystic Falls. There would be too many questions after she and Mason had moved away. Mason never really took up a job, but considered surfing as good as. Especially as he learned to use his powers to call up the best waves. He was of the ocean. Wild and free. Everyone else found their places in or around the palace.

Sheila curated the library, with Damon’s help in the areas of his interest, and the two of them were the main teachers of the children. Enzo composed his music and got it out in the world from right there, just as Jeremy did with his art, Elena did with her novels, Caroline did with her fashions, and Stefan did with his inventions. Bonnie nurtured the animal populations on the mountain, and when some of them grew too numerous and began to threaten the balance, did her hunting to cull them manageable numbers. Abby did the same with the plant life on the mountain and, of course, took care of the gardens and now that they were living there, planted fields from the ancient seeds that had been preserved. Henry took care of the business end of what everyone was sending out, be it music, art, books, inventions, and in some cases food. He also kept their own stuff stocked, aside from the wine which was Jeremy’s job to keep stocked.

As the kids grew up, free to explore their powers within the confine of the palace and grounds, they were all the best of friends. They had four experienced teachers, though none of them were experienced with children. But then they weren’t the typical children either, so they figured it out. With a few growing pains along the way. With sixteen children within four years, none of them ever wanted for playmates, and everyone had something valuable to teach them even aside from the main teachers, especially as their individual interests became clearer as they grew up.

Both of Jenna and Mason’s sets of twins were identical, but Damon, Enzo, and Sheila’s twins could pass for identical if one didn’t look closely. They had the same color hair, and usually the same or similar styles. Their jawlines were similar too, just like their dads were. They’d both gotten their mother’s nose and skin tone. Their face shapes were relatively different with Lorenzo’s more of an oval and Damian’s more squared. The only big difference between them was their eyes. Lorenzo had gotten his father’s brilliant blue eyes, while Damian had his father’s warm chocolate brown.

When their wings grew in when they were five, Damon took the lead on teaching them to fly, and to ride the storms which he would always love doing, traveling around the world regularly so as not to put too many storms in one place. Everyone got used to the idea that when there was a storm above Olympus, it was usually because Damon was in a mood and they all walked on eggshells, letting his husband handle him. But as he pointed out amusedly whenever it happened, sometimes there were storms that had nothing to do with him.

As the kids became teenagers, their parents started teaching them how to connect to humans with frequent trips around the human world to get to know them and build on their earlier lessons in how to understand them. Once they were sixteen, they moved back to the human world. To Mystic Falls, in fact, since the boarding house was big enough for everyone without having to split up just yet. They were considered home-schooled until eighteen when they all went off to Pontier college. Everyone knew that the human world, as it was, wouldn’t last much longer, and they split up disciplines so that they would have all the necessary knowledge to rebuild. And when the kids did eventually find love and get married, their lovers were given immortality in the marriage rites, and were given the power of witches, much as the earliest Bennett ancestor had done to give magic to humans. They weren’t nearly as powerful as the gods, but they weren’t powerless either.

Eventually, there was a major extinction event that wiped out most of humanity. The gods rounded up the survivors to start a new settlement at the foot of their mountain where wards could be created to protect them and the start of the restoration of the planet began. Only then did the gods actually take up their roles, having no intention of fighting the massive numbers of humans that had forgotten they ever existed and far too many for them to even try to take care of. The smaller group was much more manageable and they started fresh, with some of their children, of which there were a great many by then, even splitting off to create new pantheons and new seats of power as the human population began to expand again.