S02 E07            𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊

Revenge, to a girl like Lila, was not a particularly linear process.

It was, however, a process she'd obsessed over for years.

She'd waded through two hundred years stoking this fire. She'd burned with it, agonised with it, let it lick and numb and char her edges.

It was a constant burn behind her eyes, the sharp dryness of her mouth with an awkward swallow, and the driving force between every bite and kill.

Burning. Funny. The last time Lila had stepped into church, the whole place had burned down.(Although, admittedly, it'd been at her hand and not at her expense–– but don't you just love the dramatics of it?) 

Walking into that church crypt in Mystic Falls (the one holding Katherine Pierce prisoner), Lila assumed, would be no different.

Mystic Falls. She'd heard that name before.

It'd been given to her in amongst a backstory she'd only half-listened to, tied up with Vikings and wolves and infidelity. Now, in the 21st century, it was a suburban dream that Lila didn't doubt would soon become a nightmare.

When Katherine had told her that this was where the next doppelganger had appeared after 500 years, Lila had almost appreciated the overarching storyline. It felt poetic for them to finish this where it'd all begun.

She wondered if her ex-lover would recognise the soil she'd bury him in.

After a few beats, she'd figured that was foolish thinking –– if Klaus Mikaelson was anything, it was not a sentimental man.

For his lack of sentimentalism, however, Lila knew Katherine had plenty. She'd seen how her eyes had been full of stars and her head had been dizzy with a single name, lips twitching with amusement before she'd even taken a breath to say it:

"Salvatore," Lila said.

She smiled a smile that was all teeth.

(Of course, Lila's only ally had sighed with a roll of her eyes. All the while, Lila had been able to catch how poorly Katherine failed to hide her smile. It always comes back to those two idiot brothers.)

"Lila," Damon greeted back.

He looked the same. Lila supposed there was only so much change a man inclined to a full black wardrobe could do. He looked the same and she looked different. Lila could tell from the way his head tilted at her hair.

Red dye had bled through what had once been light blonde.

"Hey, baby," She drawled, head tilted, "It's been a while."

And Damon, with a deep sigh, grinned back.

──────

If you were to ask Damon Salvatore how he'd met Lila, he would've visibly hesitated.

He was a sinner who kept very few misdeeds to himself, but the redhead with the southern drawl and the inclination for complete and total ruin, was one of them.

For whatever questions Alaric had had, Damon had very few answers.

He knew barely anything about her, despite the fact that he'd spent a good eleven months with her ripping up Bourbon Street in the 60s.

Damon knew she was a redhead now. That one was easy.

He knew her name too, although he'd had a hunch for many years that it was probably not the name she'd been born with.

He knew that she was not much older than him... early 1800s rang a distant bell...

He knew she was somehow the only vampire he'd met that still smoked cigarettes beyond their death, and he knew that she was in no way shy about ripping heads from necks if the occasion called for it (which, according to Lila, if Damon remembered right from memory, was every occasion.)

Damon, also, knew that she was the most damn fun he'd had in his two hundred years of existence.

He, as a final thought, knew for certain that Stefan hated Lila for it.

When Alaric had asked "And who is Lila?" Damon had just chuckled and shaken his head.

Alaric had asked him the question immediately after Damon had first mentioned her, before she had, to their knowledge, even touched Mystic Falls.

It was a question unceremonious in presentation and downright fucking difficult to answer.

"Lila's just a friend," Damon had replied.

(What he'd neglected to note or mention, was that by friend, Damon meant Lila was his closest thing to a Lexi. Only, of course, in the context of Lila, instead, making Damon far worse than almost comprehensible.)

Alaric, meanwhile, had been taken aback, "You have those?"

He'd made a noise of indifference, waving a hand, "You're hilarious. I'll remember that next time you need a drink."

"I kinda just assumed that all of your other friends were imaginary," Alaric drawled in response, shaking his head.

"Funny thing that," The vampire had replied instead, his nose scrunching as he sat himself down beside the history teacher, "Speaking of imaginary... she's kind of my brother's idea of a nightmare."

Alaric's expression had tightened and Damon had watched the dots join in the human's head. The only thing that Damon had had to respond to that was confusion –– when had anyone ever assumed a friend of Damon Salvatores was going to be Stefan-approved?

"Lila's like me," Damon had said, vouching on her behalf, "She's self-sufficient, a bit of a lone wolf... dark, mysterious and—"

"A huge fucking asshole?"

Alaric's deadpan made Damon smile. It was tight. 

"Well, personally..." Damon had said, "I would have used the words 'charismatic and polarizing' but she used to get 'soulless and-slash-or heartless bitch' a lot back in the day."

To explain Lila, Damon would've had to explain the 60s and, if hard-pressed, he would've shrugged it off and said he didn't like lingering on the past (in the true fashion of a man who had pined over Katherine Pierce for all of those years.)

Explaining the 60s meant explaining the 50s and explaining the 50s meant a part of his life that he would've liked to forgotten –– so he'd kept it just short and sweet.

──────

Lila, meanwhile, knew exactly how to describe Damon Salvatore.

He'd been a figure who'd lived at the back of her mind for decades, the memory of man who'd been as ruthless as he had been careless and casual.

In fact –– This was her first confession:

From the moment she'd met Damon Salvatore, Lila had been obsessed with how she'd kill him.

(Call it a character flaw, but that frequented all, if not most, of her first meets).

He'd  always been fun, she'd been fun. There'd been no humanity between them and no hard feelings, either. And yet, she'd decided, long ago, on tearing those pretty blue eyes out one by one, alongside the heart out of his chest and feeding it all back to him.

(She was sure there was some poetry in there somewhere too.)

Even as walked past Damon and into his home, all she could think about was how many times she'd had him vulnerable, flushed and distracted, in the exact position where she'd be able to gouge her fingers into his skull.

His eyes were still pretty and blue, and her temper was still short; and the Salvatore Boarding House was the kind of place she'd heard Katherine sigh over.

Full of dust, the Bulgarian had said but Lila thought it was full of the kind of mindless idiocy that had made them trap a lion in a tomb.

"Nice place you have here..."

Lila's drawl made Damon's face skew into the kind of grin that had gotten them in trouble too many times. His eyebrows raised as she gently twisted on the spot, squinting into every corner.

He gestured to the sideboard of alcohol, "Not quite Carousel Bar but it'll do, right?"

Lila's lip twitched.

She let him pour her a glass of his best whisky. ("Neat, I remember.") and spent a few minutes wandering the room. 

(Katherine was right, there was a fine film of dust on every bookshelf. God forbid immortals know anything about housekeeping.) 

To Damon, maybe it'd looked like she was curious, delicately examining the nest of a man she'd once considered a friend. But, in reality, Lila had never walked into a room without immediately knowing how to get back out of it.

When Damon had settled himself, Lila turned back to him. He was sitting on the couch as he nursed his fifth drink of the evening, head gently askew as he studied her.

There was a pause and then ––

"Wait a minute..."

It was Lila's turn to raise her eyebrows.

Damon raised a hand at her, as if accusing her of a scandalous crime. And so he did:

"On?"

His voice dipped in a way that made her smile — it was a pleasant smile, no bloodthirst.

She chuckled too, it was musical and light.

Lila looked over her shoulder towards him, "You sound surprised."

Good. She liked to be surprising.

She'd inherited that flare for dramatics from her maker.

But Damon sounded more than surprised — he'd scoped it out in the few seconds they'd been together and now squinted at her, as if he'd be able to see the solid flick of her humanity switch right behind her eyes.

His voice had shaken with faux horror, a hand clutching at his chest, shocked to his very core that Lila could be anything but completely shut off from her emotions.

(Lila, meanwhile, glanced down at said motion, her mouth momentarily going dry at the thought of feeling that organ shudder and clog in the palm of her hand.)

He'd studied her for a few moments and come up with the kind of conclusion that would've made Katherine Pierce weep from laughter.

She humoured him, batting her eyelashes.

(Lila? Katherine would've said if this wasn't the closest thing Damon would allow her to a 'wake'. Her humanity? On? Oh Damon... You're lucky you're pretty.)

"The last time I saw you, your body count was rivalling the death toll in 'Nam" Damon said, "Excuse me for being surprised that the most emotionally stunted bitch I know has grown a heart."

With a crooked smirk, Damon shook his head.

"Anyone would think you're flirting with me, Salvatore..."

Her voice was heavy with a drawl (one that had skirted around the edges of Damon's mind for almost fifty years.)

Her head skewed to the side too, watching as his shoulders shook with a slight chuckle.

Damon made a dismissive noise and shrugged his shoulders, "I guess old habits die hard."

Lila, in return, just grinned.

Oh, wouldn't Damon just.

He held out her glass, inviting her closer. Lila let her fingers brush his as she took it from his hand, turning her back on the Salvatore brother she'd always, in some way, preferred.

(Although, between her and the walls, there wasn't much competition there.)

"What can I say?" Lila said, "I'm a changed woman."

Wrong. With Lila, barely anything ever changed..

Damon inclined his head at her hair, "So I see..."

He squinted at her for a long moment, as if getting used to the bangs and the shade of red –– if Lila cared, she would've recounted how she'd box-dyed it in the blown mirror of a gas station somewhere in Oklahoma.

She'd cut it herself too (with the same deadpan precision that she'd used to cut Lucy Bennett's throat).

Damon cleared his throat and nodded, as if he knew the exact story of the bastard she'd cut from her like a cancer.

(He did.)

"Bad breakup?"

Lila smiled.

"My ex had a thing for blondes," was her reply.

Damon's nose scrunched, "If I remember right from all you've told me, he also had a thing for being a piece of shit––"

She just chuckled.

"Oh baby," Lila said, "He made a career of it."

But then she looked him up and down.

"I could ask you the same, y'know?" She added, after a moment.

Her voice was soft.

She was softer than she had been when she'd been hunting. Those muscles had eased but her foot flicked ever so often, as if the urge to raise her hackles was still deeply interwoven into every nerve and blood vessel.

Lila propped her head against her hand, elbow wedged into the couch beside her. She lifted her glass to her lips and smiled knowingly with a glimmer in her eye:

"Katherine, wasn't it?"

She recognised the grin that took hold of his face.

It was a crooked grin. She'd once seen it bloody.

Damon flourished a hand with the dramatics Stefan lacked when he wasn't incisor deep in some poor humans neck.

He raised his glass.

His unannounced toast rang through the room and down past all of the years it'd been since they'd partied together: past the breakup, past the hair, past all of the other odds and ends Lila had found herself shoving out of the way like mismatched body parts ––

Past her alliance with Katherine and the men she'd gut to follow it through.

"This," Damon declared, "Is the best fucking day of my life."

──────

Lila had heard what Katherine did to Damon.

(And she'd seen, just behind Katherine's eyes, what the Salvatore brothers had to done to her in return, too.)

Damon had told her the sordid tale of Katherine Pierce over drinks at Napoleon House and Lila had sat in the exact same place when the exact woman had pulled up a stool beside her.

It was an infamous story, but Lila found it boring in places.

Too romantic, too dramatic, not enough blood.

Two brothers falling for the same woman... love turning to obsession... betrayal festering where admiration once laid... immortality ripping dry veins that had once bled for love––

Yawn.

Sure, it was Shakespearean, but Lila found it all a bit uninspired.

Dare she say cliché and a little recycled, too.

Katherine had made a mess. She'd sunk her teeth and her fingers in and pulled apart the two Salvatore brothers like bread at communion; torn and torn and torn until they'd had bullet holes for hearts with her blood in their veins.

Lila guessed that turning them would be Katherine's greatest mistake –– but, she digressed, Damon sometimes had his uses.

He wasn't too bad company, for one. A good kisser. On occasion, a good screw. He knew how to pour a drink and had known, once upon a time, how to kill without ruining a perfectly good fur coat.

He also didn't really question why Lila had appeared on the same night he'd finally bested Katherine Pierce.

He hadn't questioned how she'd appeared seamlessly, as if one storyline had passed into it's second act –– curtains drawing upwards and spotlights gently straining from the heat.

Lila doubted that he hadn't even noticed it.

Damon was not the sharpest tool in the box at the best of times, but she'd supposed, maybe he just hadn't given it a second thought. When she'd known him he'd been easily distracted by shiny objects, by pretty things — and luckily, that was Lila's forte.

So when he asked, just generally, why she was in town, Lila took it on the chin.

"Why?" She asked, a look over the shoulder, "You still sick of me, Salvatore?"

He chuckled fondly and patted his abdomen, "Like a stomach ache, Lils."

She was sure he meant it too.

"Ah," Lila hummed and she stretched back against the couch, "Give me some credit there, handsome. I'm more deadly than that."

And when Damon had just rolled his eyes, Lila had tutted back.

She'd transformed into something softer; posed herself like a mannequin to have smoother edges, less bite to her smiles and her soothes. It was and forever would be the performance of a lifetime: lines fed to her by the observations she'd made over tragedies and moments of peace. When Damon's head turned to look at her, Lila was sure he'd truly believe she'd turned it on, too.

(Emotions were easy to mimic when you'd spent nearly 200 years with an immortal drama queen.)

Her face moved in a way that was unnatural to her.

"Death toll, remember?" She joked.

She scoffed, eyebrows raising.

(This was what real people would do, right?)

"Eh," He said, "Maybe you're a disease at a push."

And then she raised her chin, eyes averting to look at the ceiling overhead as her hearing picked up the squeak of floorboards in the distance. She listened to the gentle thrum of a heartbeat and chewed on the inside of her cheek ––

"And what of you?" She asked. She gestured through the ceiling, mocking him, "You have a human in your house... the Damon Salvatore I knew..."

He pulled a face, crumpling down onto the couch beside her with an exaggerated sigh. He passed her the drink he'd made and Lila just cocked a delicate eyebrow.

"I'll do you one better," He said, voice slightly hushed, as if he was telling a secret, "Not just a human... a vampire hunter."

...

Lila paused.

"You don't say?"

──────

Not only was Damon Salvatore slightly drunk on her arrival to this town, celebrating and hollering over caging a (oftentimes) rabid animal, he was changed too –– in all the ways that Lila had only dreamt of lying about.

The jagged edges she'd watched rip through countless arteries and communities, had softened considerably. His smile was warmly spiteful instead of cold. His confidence was clumsy and arrogance was something that he juggled in his hands and between his fingers.

Gone was the man whose emotions had been tightly confined to the blood on his back molars; with the muscles unclenched in his shoulders and the inclination for mischief and pettiness when a scream went too loud or a runner went too far ––

Now he was pouring another glass and pulling up a chair for a human at their metaphorical dinner table.

"That's what you say–– Right, Ric?"

Damon's head turned to call across the house.

Lila became familiar with the sound of the Salvatores' Boarding House stairs.

"History teacher by day, slayer of the damned by night––?"

"––I'm not Giles, you dick."

Ric was about the same height as Damon, but well under half the age.

He mumbled his response into a glass of alcohol as he entered the room.

Lila sized him up with a glance: he was heavier but lacked the muscle –– scruff, wide set shoulders and unruly hair.

When she glanced back at Damon, he was smiling at him as if he was a friend. Human. A notably human friend.

(Ugh.)

Lila hid her grimace behind a sip of whisky.

"And I'm not Spike," Damon replied with a sarcastic smile, "But here we are."

Ric just flipped him off.

Lila had met a few vampire hunters in her time, but none that strolled into a vampires nest with such confidence as this one. Her eyes flickered between the pair, her head filled with silly little tattoos and curses and swords and stories of mania –– and then she shrugged it all off for a convincing smile.

Rage lined a space where her heart had once ached.

"Lila, this is Ric... Ric, Lila..."

Damon waved a hand between them and Lila let the whole world glimmer in her eyes.

"A vampire hunter?" She echoed, then she looked back at the vampire, "That's progressive of you."

"What can I say," Damon drawled, his eyebrows bouncing, "He had me at the first stake attempt, yada yada––"

"Ignore him," was Ric's brisk interjection,"I think the last wooden stake bullet hit a part of his brain that hasn't healed right since."

Lila watched, intently, as the human collapsed into the Salvatore's armchair, feet up on the coffee table as if the house was as his as it was Damon's.

"Shame," Lila said, the hairs standing up on the back of her arms. She shook off the sensation with a twist of her chin, "If only you'd fixed the part of his brain that controls that ego..."

Ric let out a groan of half-laughter, half-exasperation. In the background, Damon let out a soft 'hey', glaring at the red-head as she shot him a sweet smile.

"Oh no," Ric said, jerking his head in the vampires direction, "I think that's here to stay."

Lila watched the movement of his neck, eyes flickering across the expanse of skin

–– His posture was relaxed, shirt collar undone and if she concentrated hard enough, she could tell that he was unarmed ––

A vampire hunter unarmed in a room with vampires, what an easy kill he'd presented her with ––

–– She'd slide her fingers under that jawbone, behind the scruff on his chin, and pull as hard as she could until ––

"Hm?"

Lila blinked at the mention of her name.

It was a dizzying contrast to the reminder that, even if she'd go crazy for it, there was no murder Lila could ever hesitate before commiting.

Her head turned to look over at Damon as he grinned slyly –– his cheeks were flushed. He must've drunk a lot before she'd even got here, maybe before she'd even called.

She'd turned up to the party late, but fashionably so; she could tell that by the way Ric looked at her.

He looked at her curiously, slight wariness in his gaze, tumbled in with the kind of awe that had got 'Big Sam' colouring the floorboards red. It wasn't quite fear but it was the acknowledgement that she was something other; an acquaintance maybe, a stranger, something that didn't belong here or was out of place.

Lila's lip twitched.

Good, Lila thought. Smart boy.

(She liked men best when they were scared.)

Damon, meanwhile, was pretty gone. 

Gone where?, Lila wasn't 100% sure, but she was sure it was somewhere in the vicinity of the bourbon bottle on the sideboard. She'd seen him messy, she'd seen him bloody and now she saw him unable to stay still.

"I was just saying we used to have a good time, right?" Damon said, "Used to party a lot... Lila, here... let me tell you, Ric, she knows how to have a good time––"

"Gross," the human mumbled to himself, nose wrinkling.

As if Lila hadn't been fantasising of their deaths for the past thirty seconds, her head tilted to the side and she scoffed.

"Don't let me take all the credit," Lila sighed, "This room isn't big enough for both of our egos."

"We had a good time," Damon replied, flapping a hand dismissively, "To answer your questions, Ric... that's all you need to know."

With that, Lila looked over towards the history teacher.

"Questions?" She echoed with amusement. "About me?" When he nodded, Lila leant forwards, one leg folded over the other, "What do you want to know?"

Ric shrugged, "Just the usual stuff anytime someone comes into town: Who are you? What are you? How many people have you killed? How many will you kill––?"

He was cut short by Damon's loud snort of laughter. Lila chuckled too ––

"What is this?" She asked lightly, "Speed-dating?"

"Jenna not doing it for you at the moment, Ric?" Damon teased, like an echo, in the background.

"Yeah, well," Ric rolled his eyes, "Call me a romantic, but I'm starting to assume every vampire that rolls into this town is gonna kill me at some point and I'd at least like a heads up once in a while."

At the end of his sentence, the history teacher leant forwards, placing his glass on the table. Lila watched the movement –– he was inebriated too, she could smell it in him... her eyes traced the muscles as they twisted in his neck, heard the echo of his heartbeat and the thud of blood through that delicious artery on his neck ––

Lila blinked.

How easy it would be. How fast.

Her foot twitched.

"Don't worry," She joked, "I'll give you at least five working days' notice."

His chin dipped in her direction, "Appreciated."

"I mean, I'd appreciate it if he stopped interrogating all of my friends," Damon bemoaned from the next couch. He sighed dramatically, the alcohol making him sink into the chair, "But sure, whatever––"

"There's too many ulterior motives these days," Ric said, shaking his head, and Lila pressed her lips into a thin line, (Ulterior motive? Her? Never.) "You have to be careful... I mean there's too much going on, man. Too many things under things and––"

"Talking of a thing under a thing," Lila interjected smoothly, "Isn't this supposed to be a party?"

They were both to drunk to metabolise the subject change. One by one, their heads raised to look at Lila as if made dizzy by the abrupt stop and switch.

She was sure this was supposed to be a party, right?

She was also very sure it was one of the words that appealed to Damon Salvatore, emotions be damned, and would very conveniently turn this whole thing away from very dangerous waters ––

A wide grin stretched across Damon's face and sat up.

"Oh Katherine," Damon sighed, dramatically "What joy imagining you suffer brings me..."

"Now that," Lila chuckled, "Is true romance, Mr. Salvatore."

At that, he used the same speed Lila had utilised to turn said, 'Big Sam', into a fine red mist, to reach a record player in the far corner. Lila's eyebrows raised as he produced a record, as if out of thin air, and filled the room with what she could only describe as bad house music.

"We should make this a real party," Damon said, "Get some music going, dancing, people celebrating dance, right ––?"

Before Lila knew it, Damon's hips were swinging to the beat, his head swaying.

She side-glanced at the grimacing history teacher beside her.

"Why do I get the impression he hasn't had much to celebrate in his life?" Lila remarked, dryly with a sly smile.

Granted, Lila didn't have much to celebrate either, but there was something so clumsy about observing his delight, especially when she was so used to him emotionless and gaunt. She almost didn't recognise the emotion on Damon's face (God, wasn't the look of any emotion at all, so unfamiliar on his striking, pretty boy face) –– but when she saw it, it rang through the room, loud and clear.

Ric just shrugged, "From what I hear, you're one of the people who made him who he is, Lila."

And to that, she just pouted.

"Really?" She questioned. Lila gestured across to Damon, "You think I can take all of the credit behind that?"

The vampire in question rolled his eyes, all while Ric winced into his glass.

"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," The history teacher mumbled to himself.

"I wished a lot on my worst enemy," Damon interjected, before he could be insulted any further, "I wished eternal suffering, and today, I got to finally follow it through it––"

"Here he goes again," Ric said under his breath, and Lila could tell, immediately, that Damon's victory lap wouldn't end until something truly tripped him.

"Katherine Pierce is rotting away exactly where she was supposed to be," Damon declared, "and now I get to spend the rest of my existence riding the high of my revenge."

Revenge was something Lila supposed she could've sympathised with in a universe out there somewhere, one where she had the capacity for any kind of sympathy at all. But in this life and this room, she was cold of it, unfeeling towards the man who'd once called her a friend.

And there, Lila hid a knowing smile behind a hastily raised glass.

Katherine rotting away? Huh. Well.

Lila raised with him, trailing around the room and leaving her glass on the coffee table beside Ric's foot.

"Dance!" Damon encouraged, "You used to love dancing with me, Lil. Dance."

And then he turned to Ric, attempting to pry the human to his feet, the redhead took a long drag of whisky and knew it was gonna be a long ride. Lila twisted to the beat, figuring that she had to get through this night one way or another––

She might as well have a little fun with it, right?

──────

It was only when the sun rose that Mystic Falls realised what had hit it ––

Specifically, the exact realisation which weighed heavy on Stefan Salvatores' brow as he made his way home.

The night had swept a storm across the place that no one had heard or felt, or even noticed. It was silent and just in the manner of an unjust God: it gave with one hand and took with the other while you had your back turned.

And Stefan was fucking tired of it.

Unlike his brother, his good mood hadn't lasted till morning. The morning had brought with it the confused look on Jeremy Gilbert's face between first and second period. He'd stood in the school hallway and explained that his sister, Elena, hadn't come home from the Masquerade party from the night before, and that her car was still in the driveway of the Lockwood Estate across town.

"Look," Jeremy had said with a knowing smile, "Elena's got to let me know if I'm supposed to cover for her. Jenna's cool with the two of you but you guys are pushing it."

Stefan had blinked back at him, "What are you talking about?"

"You and Elena," had been Jeremy's reply, "Look, I'm glad you guys are back together but if she's gonna sleep over..."

"What?" Stefan's brow had furrowed. He'd shaken his head, watching Jeremy's smile fade into something wary at his tone, "Elena... No... No, we're not back together."

The youngest Gilbert had frowned, nose scrunching as if he hadn't expected that response. Then, in a cautious voice Stefan was becoming all too familiar with, Jeremy had set in motion chaos:

"Wait, so she didn't stay at your place last night?"

Stefan's first port of call had been to hike across Mystic Falls to the scene of a mystery: Elena's car still parked, untouched. He'd stood in the Lockwood's driveway and felt the uneasy shift in the pit of his stomach –– something bad had happened, he could feel it distantly.

The last twenty four hours had given them their revenge on Katherine Pierce, but then taken Elena Gilbert from right under their noses.

"Damon?"

He entered the Salvatore Boarding House with no fanfare, just the sound of his voice and the door slamming behind him as unease stirred to urgency. Admittedly, asking for his brother's help for anything happened to be a bit of a low point for Stefan, but walking into the ruins of a party from the night before added a pinch of insult to injury.

Immediately, his nose wrinkled at the distinctive stench of alcohol and sweat.

Partygoers littered the floor, some bleeding and some not. Furniture, moved aside for an impromptu dance floor, were more often than not on their side, lined with red solo cups. The record player in the next room had resigned to playing old Armstrong b-sides, and a solitary group of half-dressed humans played a bleary-eyed game of Go-Fish in the dining room.

"Damon?" Stefan called again.

A girl with a visible puncture wound on her neck audibly winced and shushed him. She glared at him from the pile of cards on the hardwood floor.

(She was ignored.)

(Now really wasn't the time.)

Stefan's had snapped in the direction of their rarely used kitchen as the distant sound of a blender clipped through the drunken din. Faster than any of the half-drunk humans could comprehend, he was gone, speeding his way towards the noise ––

And then Stefan came to an abrupt halt.

A familiar redhead was standing in his kitchen.

?!#*&/!?

He froze to the spot, brow furrowing as he watched her press a perfectly manicured hand to the top of a blender he wasn't even aware they owned. She didn't seem to notice him straight away, peacefully carrying on as if not interrupted –– he watched a red liquid slosh around until her eyes, eventually, flickered up to meet his.

They gleamed, delighted at the sight of him.

"Oh hey, handsome," Lila drawled, "Want a drink?"

Stefan just stood there, perfectly still and visibly buffering. His thoughts congealed in his head like a clot to a wound. For every mental step forward he took, a thousand Oh God No's threatened to tear his sanity to the ground.

She was wearing a t-shirt Stefan recognised vaguely as his brothers', red-hair loose flowing around her shoulders. Her nonchalance made Stefan, immediately, remember exactly why they'd never quite gotten on.

Eventually, Stefan settled on this:

"What the hell are you doing?"

A masterfully drawn smile pinched Lila's lips.

"I'm making a Bloody Mary," She replied, gesturing to the counter-tops. Miffed, Stefan didn't miss the empty blood bag in the trash beside her. "You still a wuss? 'Cuz I could make you one virgin––"

"I meant here," Stefan interjected sharply, ignoring the jab at his diet. He managed to collect himself into something more coherent. "In Mystic Falls... What the hell are you doing here, Lila?"

"She just swung by."

Damon's voice floated up behind him as he entered the room.

Stefan turned to stare at him. Like Lila, he seemed recently-showered, perfectly spry for what seemed like such a lively night. Damon clapped a hand on Stefan's shoulder, oblivious to the panicked morning he'd had. Then, Stefan watched as Lila pushed a freshly made cocktail across the counter, garnished a tail of celery, a straw and a small decorational umbrella.

"Yeah, I can see that," Stefan said, "But can I ask: Why is she here?"

(He asked the question as if she wasn't even there. Lila, amused, just chuckled in the background between them –– Yeah, fuck you too, buddy.)

"We're catching up, aren't we, Lils?" Damon said, cocktail in hand. She nodded. "It was a complete surprise but can I say..." His head turned to wink at the woman in question, "a complete and utter delight."

"Yeah, sure," Stefan said. He felt like he was still slightly shellshocked from everything happening all at once. "I'm sure Lila is a complete delight to the people you probably killed last night on my hardwood floors––"

"Our hardwood floors," Damon rebutted lightly, "And not a single death."

Stefan shot a disbelieving look in Lila's direction, as if she, standing there alone, was an argument for the opposite.

"Lila?" Damon said, "Oh, No–– She's reformed."

Stefan scoffed, "Sure."

"It's true," Lila chimed in, with an expression sweet enough to give them all cavities in their vampire fangs, "I've repented for my sins, Stef. Seen the error for my ways and... y'know all that other really nice stuff that's great for small talk for a Monday morning."

She lifted the straw of her cocktail to her lips and held Stefan's gaze with stars in her eyes. He stared at her for an extended breath.

(It was just as Damon had the evening before, searching for that calling card of a humanity-less vampire in her face, in her eyes. But Lila's humanity had always been so much more than just on or off. It'd been void from the day dot.)

(And a blank canvas was so much easier to paint on, right?)

"Sure," Stefan repeated, (neither of them knew if he was convinced by what he saw.) "Whatever. I'll believe that when I see it."

"God," Damon sighed to himself, "You always do this... You always make us both look so lame in front of my friends whenever I bring them home––"

"Yeah, well, when you befriend demons of hell," Stefan said, inclining his head towards the redhead, "Then someone has to be the voice of reason."

Lila, who'd been very comfortably drinking her Bloody Mary, just shot Stefan a dazzling smirk from the other side of the counter-top. 

"Oh Stefan," She drawled, without missing a beat or fluttering an eyelash, "You're so lucky dirty talk still turns me on."

(Lila was ignored.)

Stefan shook his head, realising he'd been side-tracked from the reason he'd come here in the first place. Really, none of this mattered right now; the party, the cocktails, Damon, Lila, none of it.

"Look," He began, as Damon turned to Lila and gave a very insincere apology on his brother's behalf, "It's nice and everything for the two of you to reunite after the past, uh, fifty years but now really isn't a good time––"

"I thought it was the perfect time," was Damon's interjection, "We got Katherine out of here, Lila is in town... I'd say the universe is pretty well balanced now."

"Actually, seeing as currently Elena is missing," Stefan countered flatly, "I'd say the universe is going to shit."

──────

Elena.

Lila had heard that name before, but it'd been said differently – Stefan said it with a mounting panic, as if he was exasperated and panicked, all at once. She saw it in his eyes, his eyes that had displayed the closest to actual human emotion Lila had ever seen in a vampire.

Katherine, meanwhile, had said it with a roll of her eyes, voice pitched slightly as if mocking the way the girl spoke. She'd said it with exasperation, too, sure, but bitterly so. She wasn't concerned, she wasn't fearful, she was sick of it. She'd repeated once, twice and then again ––

"Elena?"

Lila's eyes flickered back to Damon. His back was turned from her, but even from behind him, Lila could sense the way Stefan's declaration had made him freeze. 

And freeze it did. She watched each muscle clench with a deep chill. It started with his jaw and worked its way down until he was stuck to the spot.

"Missing?"

Damon echoed his words back to him.

"Yeah," Stefan nodded stiffly, seeming to find relief in how quickly the mood soured. "Like I said, going to shit."

In the background Lila's attention continued to flick at regular intervals between them –– Stefan, oh how she found Stefan boring in all of the traditions of a man self-redeemed. She'd only met Stefan, twice, but both interactions had been enough to leave an impression for them both.

The first time Stefan had been exciting and then the second, he'd been boring. Really boring. The kind of bore that'd almost made Lila consider flipping her switch on just to feel something else.

Damon, on the other hand, was always exciting in some way. Not as exciting as the Ripper of Monterey, as Stefan had been in his glory, but Damon would do. He was almost not disappointing.

Stefan, in his humanity, humility and humiliation, had reminded her how disappointing men, in particular, tended to be.

(Her second confession? She'd fantasied about killing him too.)

In fact, it occupied Lila's mind as she let them divulge all of the details of Elena's disappearance. Elena, Katherine had said she was boring too. Straight hair, straight life, and straight into Stefan Salvatore's heart ––

"––this has Katherine written all over it."

Lila blinked back into the conversation as Stefan name-dropped the only ally she'd had in years. Katherine seemed to pop up at the tensest of times and, even locked firmly away, she still was present in every one of their qualms.

Lila had to give to her, from a fellow psychotic bitch, if she had the capacity to be impressed, she supposed she would've been by now.

"Katherine's in the tomb," Damon said, "Trust me. I'm the one who shut her in there––"

Katherine in Tomb. Lila made a mental note.

Church tomb. She recalled that from the phone call.

How much money did she need to put on it being the very tomb Katherine had supposed to have been in this whole time? She would've appreciated the circular structure of that narrative if it wasn't currently a pain in her ass.

"Did you?"

Stefan's hurried question made Damon pause. A low scoff fell past his lips and he retorted his brothers question slowly back to him:

"Did I what, Stefan?"

"Well," Stefan said, "I know the hold Katherine has on you––"

"She's in the tomb," Damon insisted. He sounded irritated and Lila didn't blame him. Stefan could be such a drag most of the time. "Period. End of story."

Long forgotten as the catalyst of their tension, Lila watched as Damon put his Blood Mary down, untouched. He shifted as Stefan turned and paced a line down the centre of their kitchen. Her sharp eyes picked up the way Damon seemed to falter, as if recalling something from that evening, long before the celebration had even started.

"She did say something right before I shut her in," Damon admitted slowly. He shook his head and Lila saw the agitation on his face before he voiced it: "I thought she was lying––"

Stefan leapt to him, "What did she say?"

"Elena's in danger."

Yeah, no fucking shit.

Disinterested, Lila's head fell to her cocktail. As Stefan scrambled over a very blatant statement, she fished the celery out of her glass –– the sound of her loud bite reverbed through the room but neither of the brother's notice. They were consumed by, admittedly, a very well-played and desperate last ditch effort by Katherine Pierce to bargain her freedom.

In the next room, Lila faintly heard the Armstrong record come to its end.

"We have to go talk to her."

And Stefan's declaration started it all.

Desperation bled into the same sentiment that made a lightbulb turn on in the back of Lila's head.

Oh. Well, Lila wasn't gonna say No to that, was she?

"No, no," Damon said quickly, "Let me tell you how that's gonna go: We're gonna go ask her for help, she's gonna negotiate her release which we're gonna be dumb enough to give her and she's gonna get out and kill us!"

(Yeah, basically.)

(Or Lila would get there first, she hadn't quite decided yet.)

"...This is exactly what she wants––!"

"I don't really care," Stefan replied bluntly.

"It's a bad idea, Stefan."

"It's Elena––"

And that's where Lila cleared her throat.

In unison, the two brother's heads snapped to her. Their eyes felt heavy from their intense discussion, but Lila knew she'd weathered worse storms. Her face broke into a bashful, slightly uncertain smile and she spoke like, to her, these were all just names and letters she'd never even heard.

"Hi," Lila began, "Sorry,–– not to be the token outsider, but I'm new to town so... Who is Elena? And, um, why would either of you care that she's missing?"

　　AUTHOR'S NOTE ! . . .
lila daydreaming of killing a man i love women who are passionate abt their hobbies !!!!
elijah time soon. brother in law reunion gonna go mad.

WORD COUNT ! . . . 7103
WRITTEN ON THE 16TH OF DECEMBER 2024