canon } { what's the matter with kids today

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It all starts because Stefan is trying to break Damon’s compulsion.

… Actually, it’s more like Bonnie is trying to break it and Stefan is begrudgingly helping. Bonnie comes over shortly after Stefan locks Damon down there, possibly at Elena’s behest, and spends a lot of their conversation being right. Stefan really, really hates it when Bonnie’s right.

Basically, her argument comes down to three things:

One: Elena being sired to Damon is not (completely) Damon’s fault, nor are Elena’s feelings for Damon (sire bond induced or not), and even if bleeding his brother out and locking him down in the basement would make him feel better (Bonnie uses the word “temporarily,” but Stefan doesn’t really think that’s accurate), this doesn’t change the fact that leaving Damon there for things he can’t control is not a nice thing to do.

(Neither is sleeping with your brother’s ex-girlfriend the day after they break up, but that’s just Stefan’s opinion.)

Two: If Damon remains compelled by Kol, then the odds increase exponentially that Jeremy will end up dead. Especially if he’s been bled and left downstairs to go dry for days on end. Jeremy dying would be bad.

(Stefan actually agrees with that one. Even if he and Jeremy aren’t exactly friends, he doesn’t want to see the kid dead either. Even if Damon would deserve all the crazy he gets.)

Three: They need Damon. Whether Stefan likes it or not.

Forced to cave under the pressure of Bonnie being logical (which sucks), Stefan allows her access to his half-dead brother for the purposes of trying to rehabilitate him. While he knows that her normal witchy mojo can’t break compulsion, she thinks that her new power with expression might be able to make a difference. So he leads her down to the basement, opens the door to the room where Damon is being held, and allows Bonnie to do her worst.

The end result really isn’t what anyone expected.

“What did you do?”

Damon, while never really that tall is currently much shorter. In fact, he hasn’t seen this particular side of Damon in many, many years, and when he realizes what has happened, he laughs. He laughs really, really hard. It’s probably not particularly kind, but when your 170 year-old brother (who at the moment, you would like to violently stab with something sharp and wooden) looks like he’s currently about eight, there’s little you can do but laugh.

“Crap … Damon, I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry. You’re sorry?! Don’t be sorry, Bonnie, just fix it.”

“I don’t know if I know how!”

They both look expectantly at Stefan.

Stefan just laughs more.

“Fantastic. Thank you, brother, for being so helpful.”

“Unlike Bonnie, I am not sorry, and hope she can’t fix it.” Then he pauses. “Is he still a vampire?”

Bonnie turns to him, baffled, and gives a half shrug, before Damon goes zooming past them at normal vampire speed. Apparently, making him a midget healed him of the blood loss as well.

“That answers that question.”

“Stefan, we don’t know if he’s not—”

Bonnie doesn’t need to finish that statement. Stefan’s already gone, cutting his brother off at the front door before he can step through it. An advantage to being this size is that he can easily tote Damon around under one arm, no matter how much he may kick and scream.

“Put me down, Stefan.”

“Sure thing, brother.” He plops Damon down on the couch, before moving to sit in the chair across from him. He seriously looks at Damon for a moment, before speaking. “You still can’t leave the house.”

“Why not?”

“A, we don’t know whether or not you’re still compelled. B, do you really want anyone out there to see you like this? And finally, C, because I said so.”

Damon glares intently at him. If it were any other child, the words “You’re not the boss of me” may have flown out of his mouth, but since it is Damon, he doesn’t bother. Instead he bounces to his feet and tries to zoom off again for the door. He makes it about three feet before he collapses to the ground, clutching his head and screaming in pain. Bonnie makes her way out of the hallway, and Stefan just looks up at her with a thoroughly convinced look on his face.

“I think we’re going to need a kid leash.”

***

The kid leash actually isn’t a bad idea. Dipped in vervain and with a few magical modifications by Bonnie (done correctly this time, Shane helped), Stefan can pretty much keep hold of his brother at all times. In the event that he needs to leave the house, he fashions the kid leash to the ceiling and leaves Damon dangling just enough above the ground that he can’t go anywhere.

Eventually he gets bored with having to constantly monitor Damon’s every move and just leaves him hanging from the ceiling. Every so often he’ll come by with a glass of blood, and Damon will tell Stefan that he needs to let him down. Stefan’s response, more often than not, is the following:

“Drink your blood.”

It takes about a week for Elena to find out from Bonnie what was going on, and she storms into the boarding house to find Stefan in the den, reading the paper, and a kid shaped Damon dangling from the ceiling.

“Stefan, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. This was all Bonnie. I didn’t even want her to do it in the first place, but nobody really listens to me anymore.”

Stefan really, really enjoys being right. He always has, but he also really enjoys rubbing it in Elena’s face as well. That part is new.

“You can’t just leave him tied to the ceiling—”

She starts to move forward but Stefan zooms in to cut her off, placing himself between Elena and his brother. He tips his head to the side with a thin smile, before crossing his arms in front of his chest. “He’s still compelled, Elena. He’s still a vampire. He can still kill your brother. I don’t think any of these things are what you want.”

“He’s right, Elena.” Damon’s voice comes from behind him, and Stefan smirks even more. “I hate it, but he’s right.”

“This isn’t right either.”

“What else am I supposed to do with him, Elena? Give him a juice box, let him watch cartoons and hope he doesn’t run off to kill Jeremy?”

Elena huffs a bit at that, before nodding and taking a step back. “I’m not staying away this time.”

“Fine by me.” Stefan knows it’s a bad idea, but if she’s going to insist on making bad choices, it’s not his job to police her anymore. Besides, the harness is laced with vervain. It should slow her down a bit. “Your turn to babysit. I need a drink.”

He grabs his jacket off the back of the couch and starts to head out the door. He’s had enough of quality time with his brother for the week. He needs to be someone else’s problem.

***

It’s another week before Damon is back to normal and packing his bags for a trip across the country. It saves Stefan from having to bleed him again, and will, for the most part, keep Jeremy safe until they can figure out what to do. The potential for daggering Kol is still there (Elena’s plan to use the white oak stake—which Kol has—to kill him is a terrible one), but for right now, Damon being out of the way is best for everyone.

This ending, unfortunately isn’t nearly as satisfying as the first one had been.

Then again, tomorrow is always another day.



1296 words