Things were rather tense with the three friends for the rest of the day until Elena had to leave for her sparring practice, and they remained tense for a few weeks after that. A good portion of that was because they all had rather heavy subjects on their minds. Mostly regarding Damon. Caroline was processing how careful Damon was with the teaching to live feed and what Bonnie had said about how it was healthier. Also the solid proof she had now of how much blame was thrown on Damon that he didn't deserve and she was trying to figure out what else they might be blaming him for that was undeserved. Elena was trying to figure out how everything had gone so wrong. How both her best friends ended up being vampires and where she could fit in that world. Was she really doomed to spend the rest of her life being wrapped up and protected? No, that was why she was learning to fight. She didn't have to become a monster to protect herself.

Bonnie's mind was the heaviest though. She had seen far too much of the future Elena in that conversation for her comfort. Too much of the Elena that always jumped to the worst possible conclusion about the man that sacrificed everything for her. That always blamed him for everything that went wrong even when he was helping her. Damon had been running himself to the ground trying to chase Stefan and teach her to protect herself and Elena still jumped on any excuse to hate him. Bonnie hadn't realized that habit started so soon. At least not this bad. She decided to redouble her efforts to get close to Damon. She'd accepted him, yes, but she hadn't fought for him yet. Not really. She hadn't had the opportunity. She would have to find one. Before Elena broke him too badly. That led to her regularly dropping by his house, ostensibly for blood that she could just as easily keep at home, but also to offer her help in chasing down any leads he might have.

Damon might have accepted her help if not for Elena's disapproval. She'd been riding him hard lately over the Bonnie thing. To the point that he hadn't even taken Bonnie into the city to feed again once she was steady and able to do so on her own. He hadn't fed himself either, sticking to blood bags so as to keep Elena happy. The only time he left town was when he was trying to track his brother down. As such, he was starting to fray. His temper especially. Learning that Caroline's father was in town and that he'd kidnapped and tortured his own daughter just for being a vampire was almost the last straw. He let Liz talk him down though. Talk him into compelling him instead of killing him. But apparently that didn't work. And the man didn't even try to pretend it did. Clearly, he wanted a fight, so Damon would give him one and no one was going to stop him this time. Damn the consequences.

Elena and Ric tried to stop him on the way in, but Damon had enough. Of all of them. They wanted his protection. They wanted his help. And then hamstrung him every time he tried to. He was done. He tried the nice way, now he was doing it his way. Once he made sure that Ric had his ring, he snapped his neck. That should keep both him and Elena from following him. Elena wouldn't leave him like that. He went inside and found that man in the office he had as a founding family member pouring a glass of scotch. The conversation proved that he was counting on Damon being kept on a leash so that he could walk all over them and that was the last straw. He wasn't sure if he was going to kill the man yet or not, but he could at least teach him a lesson. No one tamed Damon Salvatore.

Bonnie heard about the mess going down from Caroline who called her for help to stop Damon from killing her father. Bonnie went running, but unfortunately for Caroline, she wouldn't be on the same side. She would try to save her father's life, sure, but she wasn't letting anyone take Damon to task for it. This was her chance to fight for him and she wasn't about to let it pass. She got there a few minutes after Caroline did as she was healing her father. When Caroline went after Damon, Bonnie blurred in front of her and pushed her away. "Caroline, stop!"

"He was going to kill my father?!" Caroline snapped, keeping herself between her father and both vampires.

"Okay, one, you don't know that he was actually going to kill him. Two, you don't know the circumstances leading up to it. Don't you think Damon should at least get a chance to tell his side of the story?"

Caroline just gave her a disgusted look as she took her father and sped him out of there, just in time for Elena to come rushing in and lay into Damon. "You can't do this anymore Damon! Not in this town. Not around me!"

Bonnie was about to jump in, but didn't get a chance as Damon dragged himself to his feet, blood still dripping down his chin. "Why not? Nothing I haven't done before. Why is it suddenly so important for everyone to keep me in check?" Damon asked angrily, stalking towards her and Bonnie decided to stay out of it for now. Maybe this was the break they needed.

"Because I don't want you to be what other people think you are," Elena snapped.

"What? A monster? Sorry to disappoint you Elena, but last time I checked I was still a vampire," Damon said pointedly. Bonnie winced at that, but no one was paying attention to her at the moment. The fact that Elena had even taken that much from him in the future was very prominent in her mind at the moment.

"I guess I wish you didn't have to act like one!" Elena yelled back at him.

"I am /not/ Stefan," Damon snarled. "How about you stop trying to turn me into him?"

When Damon gave an actual growl, low though it was, as he stormed out, Bonnie rushed after him, not sure if Elena had noticed her at all and not caring. She caught up to him on the lawn, and moved in front of him. "Hey, when's the last time you fed?" she asked gently. "For real I mean."

"Aside from a few minutes ago?" Damon huffed. "Last time with you."

"Come on. We need a trip to the city then," Bonnie told him.

"That...actually sounds like a good idea," Damon said testily, trying not to lose his temper with the one person who actually seemed to be on his side right now. He was done trying to be what everyone else wanted. He would be himself and do whatever the hell he wanted to do and anyone who couldn't handle it could go screw themselves. "Be warned, if you're coming with me, there's no guarantee that my meals are walking away alive," he said dangerously.

"As long as mine do," Bonnie told him and got a curt nod in response as he motioned her to his car. She didn't like the idea of killing, but she could understand why he felt the need to right now. He'd been bottled up for apparently too long. What he'd said about being kept in check and how he hadn't fed in weeks told her enough about what was going on that she'd had no idea of. He needed to prove that he was still himself and that no one would control him. Not even her. This was probably the most crucial part of winning him over. Accepting his darkness in theory was one thing. Accepting it when it was right in front of her was something completely different. She knew that he didn't kill often when it wasn't self-defense, but he was on the edge of a spiral right now and trying to pull him back now would just make it worse. He needed to get it out of his system and then she could help him get past it. If he would let her.

Neither of them said a word as Damon raced for the city at top speed, weaving in and out of traffic in a way that made even Bonnie nervous despite knowing very well how vampire reflexes worked. Maybe /because/ she knew which told her that Damon was pushing the edge of them. She closed her eyes and winced when they went up on the shoulder to get around some congestion and then thudded back to the freeway. Damon skidded to a stop near the seedy part of town and Bonnie worried for a minute that the cop that came up to him was going to end up as a meal, but Damon just compelled him to go away. At least, even in his spiral, he wasn't killing a cop. She quickly learned why this part of town as she followed him through the streets towards where she could hear the fight as well. Two guys, clearly gang members were beating up a guy, barely more than a kid in the alley as three more gang members surrounded them.

Damon blurred in and grabbed the two beating the kid up by the throat and slammed them into the wall of the alley. "Run kid," he snarled, leaving Bonnie to handle the three lookouts, which she did, compelling each of them in turn to stay still and be silent. As Damon ripped into the neck of the first one as they both fought uselessly against him, Bonnie did the same with one of the others. She only took her usual amount plus a little from each of them before compelling them to forget and leave. They deserved to be a little weak and woozy for a while. Might give the other kid a better head start too in case they decided to go after him again. Only her desire not to mess with free will had her not compelling them to be better people. That was a very slippery slope that she had no intention of starting down.

By the time Bonnie was done, both of the ones that had been beating up the kid were laying dead in the alley and Damon hadn't been trying to control himself at all judging by the blood that was covering his chin. "Not a word," he told Bonnie dangerously.

"All I was gonna say is that you might want to wipe your chin before we go back out into the street," she said, with a gesture to her own chin for emphasis. Damon grabbed his shirt, glad that it was black, and reached up to clean off his face. "Better. We dumping the trash or leaving it here?"

Damon considered for a moment before saying, "Leave it. They die around here often enough that no one is going to blink an eye."

"Maybe cover up the bite marks somehow though? Just in case?" Bonnie suggested.

"Couldn't hurt," Damon shrugged and reached down to rip their heads off so the bite marks wouldn't be obvious and set the heads upright on the chests. "There. They'll think it was a body dump." Might start a gang war depending on who thought it was a message from who but that wasn't his problem. "You get enough to eat?"

"Yeah. I'm good," Bonnie assured him.

"Let's get out of here then," Damon said as he stalked back out of the alley feeling a lot better, but also a lot more confused.