It was afraid of the outdoors. That'd be right. So no matter that he'd left the door wide open, that the curtains and blinds were billowing and undulating, letting in a strong breeze through the open windows, it had no interest in investigating the trees and the birds and the bunnies, or whatever it was he could hear scampering about. Squirrels, probably.

Damon straddled an uncomfortable wooden desk chair, sculling tequila. He had finished off the bourbon an hour earlier.

Atop the fireplace mantle sat that thing. From a few feet away, Damon stared at it, his unnervingly azureous eyes fixating on the fluff. It stared back at Damon, its unnaturally azureous eyes fixating on the bottle in his hand, eagerly tracking the light reflecting off the glass as he rocked it back and forth.

Damon stood quickly, unsteadily, and grabbed the kitten by the head, tossing it gently out the door.

"Animals belong outside. Go eat a cricket. Don't come back."

The kitten landed ungracefully but quickly righted herself, a little confused as she straightened out her limbs. She sat in the grass and took a couple of testing sniffs of the air, displeased with whatever information her nostrils gave her. Pupils dilating in fear, her already impressive fuzz increased in fuzziness threefold as all her hair stood on end and she darted back inside, tucking herself underneath a small armchair.

Damon had flopped onto Bonnie and Enzo's bed with a copy of The Old Man and the Sea. Enzo's, probably, he liked to pretend he was learned. Part of Damon really hated that guy, but he acknowledged it was because in many ways they were the same animal. Enzo reflected back to Damon the darkest parts of himself. Even worse though, Enzo's good side was purer than his own. Noble, strong, brave; all those things Damon knew he wasn't.

The tiny black and white fuzzball leapt up onto the top of the armchair, staring at Damon. It meowed at him. A tiny meow, high pitched and thready, barely there. Unsure. It wanted something.

The book slipped from his fingers, the world blurring at the edges from alcohol intoxication. The kitten looked like a cow. White fuzz marred with black spots. A little black nose, black cheeks. One of its fat front paws was almost entirely black, like it had stomped around in paint. She really was a teeny tiny fluff cow. But even more useless than a real cow because he couldn't milk it. Couldn't even make burgers out of it.

"You're not naming this thing after me," Damon had told Bonnie.

"Damona," she had emphasised. "Not Damon."

"Damon. Ah."

"Da. Mona."

"Witchy. I will hurt you."

"Bitey. You wouldn't. Because you'll leave baby Damona an orphan. That would be sadistic."

"When you adopt a tiger, you can name it after me."

"I didn't name her after you! Be more self absorbed, Damon, I dare you. Damona is the name of a goddess."

"Yeah, right."

"Celtic goddess. Goddess of cows. I swear to Goddess it's true!"

The fluffy cow-goddess kitten meowed again. Pointedly. Louder this time, longer. Staring Damon down. Fluff cow had balls. Figurative ones, probably. Damon could only admire that.

A phone rang. From somewhere. It sounded really far away. Or a handful of feet away. Same thing. Damon flopped back onto the bed, slopped a hand over his face. The phone stopped but immediately started up again. Rolling his eyes, he let gravity help him plop to his feet and plucked his phone off the desk where he had left it. The kitten was in reaching distance now and it craned its neck to sniff at him. Damon flicked its nose and it toppled backwards off the back of the armchair with a surprised squeak, landing on the seat cushion below.

"I am not a fluffy cow-god," he slurred into his phone.

"Okay. That's really nice for you?", Bonnie responded. "Just wanted to see how you were going. So far, it sounds like you're drunk and indignant."

"You're drunk and indignant," he parroted defensively.

"And twelve. It sounds like you're twelve."

"Your face is twelve."

Enzo was snoozing in a poolchair beside Bonnie. Why they were lounging by the pool instead of the actual ocean, right next to the resort, Bonnie wasn't quite sure why. Enzo seemed to fear the water after the Siren shenanigans though and she didn't want to push him. The sun was shining, there were cocktails, and Enzo was shirtless, so Bonnie had little reason to complain. She didn't want to let on to Enzo how concerned she was for Damon; she felt utterly helpless. He was awash in a sea of misery and loneliness, hanging on by a thread. She didn't know if she could be that thread, didn't really wanna be, but he couldn't connect with anybody else. Maybe Stefan, but he was in blissful honeymoon mode, exponentially compounding Damon's solitude.

"What's she doing?", Bonnie asked him.

Damon draped himself over the back of the armchair, staring intimidatingly at the kitten.

"It escaped."

"What?", Bonnie exclaimed. "No. How? Where is she?"

"I dunno what to tell you," he shrugged, leaning down closer, so his nose was less than an inch away from touching the kitten's nose. The kitten gazed back levelly. "I must have accidentally left a window open. Or maybe it darted out when I opened the door. I don't know how it happened. I've been so careful and so vigilant."

"Are you looking for her? She's a baby, she couldn't have gone far!", Bonnie's heart was racing. She had only had Damona a short while but already felt a great deal of affection and responsibility for her safety and wellbeing. She knew putting Damon in charge of her kitten was a risk but had hoped it might be good for him.

"I've got an eye out for it," Damon said lightly, human blue eyes locked with miniature feline matching blue eyes. "Prepare for the worst though, a fox probably got it."

Damona, taking advantage of Damon's nearness, stuck her pink tongue out and licked the tip of Damon's nose.

"Euuuuugh!", Damon bellowed, launching himself backwards, standing upright suddenly and swaying. He could still feel the scratchy sensation from the cow-kitten's unexpectedly barbed tongue. "Why's it so rough then?", he scolded the kitten, offended she had taken such liberties.

"What's rough? Damon?" Bonnie sounded worried.

"The pain and sadness of losing a beloved kitten. She was so sweet. I loved her with my whole heart. She saved a wretch like me. Now she's gone. For a brief moment I felt like I could get through this life, that everything will be o-kay, that I had reconnected with the universe. No longer, Bonnie," Damon pontificated, conducting his little speech with both hands.

The kitten watched his dramatic gesturing, figured he was playing. She let out a really happy meow. A kitten trill, long and melodic.

"Damon? Is that her?", Bonnie said excitedly, hearing the kitten vocalisations.

"Oh. Found her," Damon said nonchalantly, scooping up the kitten and pressing it to the phone. Bonnie could hear her purring.

"Where was she?", Bonnie said, relief flooding through her veins.

"I wrestled her from the jaws of a bear," Damon responded, dropping the kitten on the floor.

"She's okay?"

"She's fine, Bonnie. Keeps meowing at me. What does it want?"

"Have you fed her?"

"Yep. Yesterday."

"She needs to be fed every day, Damon! Three times a day, I left you instructions, did you read them?"

"Cow-god ate them," he told her, which wasn't a lie. He had given the piece of paper to the kitten for the express purpose of chewing it up. "So I don't see how she can still be hungry."

Bonnie shook her head. "Are you all right?"

"Are you skinnydipping right now? Because in my head you totally are," Damon deadpanned, sidestepping Bonnie's very annoying and constant question.

"Don't kill the kitten, okay?", she implored.

"Okay."

"Then yes," Bonnie told him, glancing down at her frilly lilac two-piece bathing suit. "I am skinnydipping right now."

"Thanks," Damon said, a smile gently playing on his lips.

"Call you tomorrow."

He hung up and eyeballed Damona. It meowed at him again. Ears perched tall, whiskers twitching.

Damon fetched it some dry kitten food from a box, shook some into a bowl and placed the bowl in front of it on the armchair. It sniffed the food delicately, considering. After a few moments, she sniffed the air and stared at Damon, meowing loudly in protest.

"That's what kittens eat, apparently. Don't blame me!", he told it. It leapt to the top of the armchair and rubbed against his arm affectionately. He knocked it away. It mewled loudly, hungry.

Ignoring it, he fetched his fallen book from the floor beside the bed and, along with a generous mouthful of tequila, switched his focus from the hangry fluff cow to Hemingway. Hemingway's aversion to verbosity was commendable. Damon preferred to get right to the point.

"Rrrrrr."

Action packed oceanic adventures dripped through Damon's mind.

'Rrrr. Mmmmmrrrrr. Mrrrrowwwl. Rrrr."

Damon glanced up only to see cow-kitten crouched down in a playful pounce position, tail wiggling in the air. She was eyeballing him intently.

"RrrrrRRRRrrrrroooooow. Mmmmmrrr. Rrrrrrowwwl. Mrr."

Rolling his eyes as dramatically as he knew how, spinning his whole head in a circle to complete the effect, he levered himself off the bed and pulled all of the windows closed. Exiting the cabin, he slammed the door behind himself.

Returning three quarters of an hour later, Damon emptied his jacket pocket of his bounty onto the kitchen counter. Hunting while intoxicated was something of a challenge, but he quite enjoyed the dancing swirling colours of the forest when he was day-drunk. He'd sobered a little at this juncture, his vamp alcohol tolerance was sky high.

His eyes swept through the cabin, stopping when he spotted cow-kitten asleep in the middle of the bed. Damon waltzed over and swept up the kitten, plopping it unceremoniously in front of the spoils. Damona sniffed at the three dragonflies, grasshopper, lizard and mouse Damon had caught and killed for her. She wasn't entirely certain what to do with them.

Damon picked up a dead dragonfly and the kitten wrapped her paw around his fingers, snatching it into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully before he could take it away.

Satisfied the cat could figure out how to devour the rest, Damon switched on the television and plonked himself on the couch settling himself with a blood bag from the fridge. Flicking to Netflix, he pressed play on the next episode of Gilmore Girls in the queue. Bonnie needn't know. Rory skipped school and hopped a bus to visit Jess in New York, missing her mother's graduation. Damon's heart wasn't entirely dead. He could feel the romantic tension; good girl, bad boy...

Cow-god had munched her way through the dragonflies and grasshopper, and eaten the tail off the lizard. Pleased, she leapt up onto Damon's knee. Engrossed in the love story unfolding before him, he gently stroked the kitten's head, scratching first behind one ear, and then the other.

The kitten purred.