Chapter Text
Damon and Enzo had partied it up to celebrate the renewal of their friendship and the death of the last Whitmore. They were both pretty smashed, but Enzo was more so. Clearly he’d needed it more. As the night wound down, Damon kicked back on the couch so Enzo followed suit. Except he was half in Damon’s lap, one leg thrown over Damon’s, and leaning against his side. Damon instinctively wrapped an arm around Enzo’s back to keep him from falling. Before he could realize what he’d done, Enzo settled comfortably into the almost embrace and Damon couldn’t bring himself to move a muscle. “Missed you, mate,” Enzo slurred, head lolling between the back of the couch and Damon’s shoulder.
“Missed you too, buddy,” Damon couldn’t help but return, trying to convince himself that this wasn’t what it seemed like. Enzo was clearly just a cuddly drunk.
“If only you hadn’t cared more about your own survival back then, you might not have had to miss me so much,” Enzo’s bitterness came through even the drunken bliss. He didn’t even realize how he was sitting. Just that he was more comfortable than he’d been in far too long.
“I didn’t,” Damon wasn’t sure why he was admitting. Maybe he was drunker than he thought too. Or the position they were in was making him vulnerable. Or maybe it was the pain and bitterness in Enzo’s voice as he clearly tried to get past it and find a friendship again. “I just couldn't stand to watch you die. Leaving never crossed my mind until it was off.” Whew. At least he managed to avoid admitting the big part. The part that would surely have Enzo running for the hills.
“Oh. Okay,” was all Enzo could say in his current state. It would sink in once he was sober again and then he could try to figure out what to do with that. If it changed anything. If he could get past all this easier. This whole thing with wiping out the rest of the Augustines was something like a test. To see if they could find their friendship again. He didn’t dare hope for more. But Damon deserved a shot at them too. And Damon owed him the help with this. If they could find their way, he would stick around. If not, they would go their separate ways. The main reason he’d waited three months to get past the worst of the pain and betrayal and hatred before coming back.
“So what are your plans once the Augustines are finished?” Damon wanted to keep a conversation going. Keep him from noticing how they were sitting. Hold onto this…onto /him/, just a little bit longer. Which was also why he passed the last bottle of bourbon over, letting Enzo turn it up.
“Want to see the world,” Enzo said wistfully. “All the things I’ve missed for so long. I don’t even know what’s out there anymore. How things have changed since the war. I mean…I know some. Have to be a bloody imbecile not to have picked up a little something in the last few months. The technology and phones and stuff. But not how the world has changed. Spent so long in a bloody cage, that I just want to be free,” he babbled a bit, turning up the bottle again.
“Yeah. I get that,” Damon said, pang of guilt and regret shooting through him. It was his fault Enzo spent so long in that cage. He would never try to deny him his freedom. But he had too many ties here to go with. Maybe. Fact was, after almost a century and a half, he was /finally/ getting his brother back. That meant more than traipsing around the world with his best friend. Didn’t it? Enzo’s head lolled on his shoulder as he handed the bottle back and after a long drink Damon didn’t even notice that he turned his face into Enzo’s hair. The new haircut that he actually really liked. It suited Enzo. He closed his eyes and just breathed him in, all those feelings from the past slamming back into him. But his brother /had/ to be more important. He doubted he would ever get another chance with Stefan. But would he ever get another chance with Enzo either? Obviously he would never get a chance for everything he /wanted/ with Enzo, but as a friend at least.
Ugh, he was too drink to figure this out right now. One more long drink and the bottle was handed back to Enzo as he leaned his head on Enzo’s and tightened his arm around Enzo’s back. He could figure out later, later. Right now, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Even as the soft snores started, he just got a goofy smile and took the chance to turn and press a kiss to Enzo’s head. Something that, even drunk, he would never have dared while he was awake. He gently took the mostly finished bottle from Enzo’s hand and reached to set it on the table he could barely reach. Not without moving anyway, which wasn’t an option. It teetered on the edge before falling off and breaking, but he didn’t care. It was almost gone anyway. It wasn’t long before his eyes closed too and he let the sleep take him.
Enzo had never been good at sleeping very long at a time. Not even the vampire three hours. He was lucky to get half that twice a night. From the time he was four, growing up in the workhouse where he had to always be on his guard, then living in the streets. Obviously he’d gotten /more/ sleep then, as a human, but still nowhere near as much as ‘recommended’. His body had long learned to adjust. And the wars had just reinforced that even before the nightmare of the last seventy years. The night guards had a habit of coming in and relieving their boredom at any old time after all. Which meant that he was awake pretty much the moment enough of the booze had burned from his system, barely more than an hour after he passed out. Which was when he realized the position he was in and winced. God, they must have been /really/ drunk. Damon in particular to have ended up like this.
He didn’t doubt that he’d initiated it. He’d been called a snuggly drunk before even aside from the fact that Damon didn’t reach out for affection. He craved it, just as much as Enzo did, but he’d been trained from a young age never to reach out for it. Never to expect it. That he had no right to it just because he wanted it. Enzo had always wondered if he had the luckier childhood. He knew all along the the ‘caregivers’ at the workhouse didn’t give a shit. He had no desire to reach to them for affection. To be denied and shut down by one’s own parents…that had to be worse. The otherwise ‘pampered’ life wasn’t really worth that. But that meant that Enzo had initiated the contact that, even drunk, Damon never would. He would reach back and escalate once it was started, but that was it.
Regardless of who started what though, Enzo had to extricate himself from it. Before Damon woke up and freaked out. Before the oh so fragile friendship they were trying to rebuild shattered under the far too heavy weight. Thankfully, he knew that Damon was a heavy sleeper in the best of times, much less while passed out drunk, so he gently repositioned Damon’s head on the back of the couch before unwrapping the arm from his waist. When Damon slumped to the side, lying down instead of sitting, Enzo smiled fondly at him and couldn’t resist reaching out the brush his knuckles down Damon’s cheek. Which got a wistful sigh from the sleeping vampire as he turned into the touch. Enzo jerked away with another wince, and went to find something to do to pass the time until Damon woke up. Something along the lines of exploring this old house.
It didn’t take him long to find a bunch of spare bedding in a large hall closet, and he only hesitated a moment before finding a blanket to go pull over Damon who, by then, had shifted to laying on his back. This time he resisted the urge to touch more than necessary before resuming his explorations. During which time he found Damon’s room and spent a bit of time looking through it. Not digging into anything private. If Damon had anything private. He didn’t go digging through drawers or anything and even if Damon had picked up journaling and left it out, he wouldn’t have read it. He was just immersing himself in Damon’s space as he looked around. He flipped open a few book covers in Damon’s many stacks of books, took a cursory look through the clothes in the open closet. Snorted a laugh at the large bathtub. Clearly Damon still loved his baths.