Veins of Desire

08. Now Comes The Time When I'll Need Your Truth To See

"All right, Rosebud. I need some answers," Damon announces when he walks into the parlor of the Boarding House, rolling his eyes when he spots the vampire in question sitting on one of the couches, eyes red and swollen from crying. "Oh please! Don't tell me you're crying 'cause your buddy Trevor lost his head."

Rose sniffs and uses the sleeve of her shirt to wipe the tears from her face, shooting him a dirty look. "You've always been this sensitive?"

The Salvatore merely shrugs his shoulders in his usual, unbothered manner. "Full vampire switch for this very reason. Takes the emotion out of it."

The brunette, short-haired vampire grimaces. "Yeah, you switch yours, I'll switch mine."

"Is that a dig?" Damon challenges, raising his eyebrows at her.

"It's an observation," Rose corrects him, looking at him through knowing eyes. "Being in love with your brother's girlfriend must be difficult."

"I'm not in love with anyone," Damon retorts, perhaps a bit too quickly, for Rose proceeds to shoot him a "Who are you trying to kid?"-look.

"You want to try that again?"

The Salvatore glares at her, annoyed by her meddlesome questions. Who he is or isn't in love with is none of her damn business.

"Don't get on my bad side," he warns.

"Then show me your good side," she counters, not impressed by the threatening tone in his voice at all.

For a long moment, both vampires keep exchanging challenging stares until Damon decides to drop it and move on to the reason he's been looking for Rose in the first place.

"How do I find Klaus?"

In his mind, he's made up a pretty simple, but effective plan: Find Klaus before he finds Elena or her sister and rip his heart out - problem solved. Really, he should be starting to demand extra pay for his brilliant ideas.

Rose, however, doesn't seem to think so, because she's staring at him as if he told her he saw an unicorn running through the woods just now. "You don't find Klaus, he finds you."

"Come on," Damon scoffs in reply. "Somebody's got to know somebody who knows where he is, right?" Unless of course, Stefan's right and he really is just some stupid bedtime story.

"Add another two hundred somebodies to that and you're still not even close."

"Humor me." Damon crosses his arms over his chest, not willing to let her off the hook just now. "You got in touch with Elijah, how did you do it?"

Rose sighs. "Through a very low somebody on the totem pole. A guy named Slater in Richmond."

A triumphant grin spreads on Damon's face. "Perfect. I'll drive."

The other vampire shakes her head. "No. You forget not all of us can do sun."

"Then you drive. Come on."

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Fully sated after a very delicious breakfast at the cozy little French Café Elijah has taken her to, Eleonora is anxiously waiting for the no doubt hardest part of the day - the questions Elijah promised to answer.

The two of them are currently strolling through a small park close to the city center, tanking some of the last rays of the midday sun. In fact, it's already close to afternoon. Eleonora has apparently slept more than ten hours.