A/N: Ahaha so...I don't even know how I stumbled upon the picture, but apparently there was some con, and a...baby Damon doll that sold for 3,000 smackeroos. And a picture of Ian holding this baby Damon doll and I found it oh-so-creepy. Anyway, if you haven't seen said picture, I guess you could just google "baby damon doll" and it'll pop up. But yeah...that's what inspired this story. Try not to take it too seriously.

Plastic Baby
by
Bloodless Igby

He's not sure why he agreed to this.

Or maybe he is. Maybe it's for the same reason he chooses to keep some of them, to not kill them or compel them to forget, but keep them, drink them down, only to cut open his own wrist and trickle his blood down their throats. And then kill them. There's nothing quite like making bloodthirsty baby vampires to cure him of sheer boredom.

Mmm. Sheer boredom. Precisely the reason he agreed to go antiquing with Sheriff Liz.

"I don't know why she wants a rotary phone," Liz says, as she thumbs through a box of records from fuck knows how long ago. Damon would probably know how long ago if he were actually interested in looking at them. He was alive and kicking when vinyl was invented, after all. "She doesn't even use the house line."

Damon snorts. "This is your little princess we're talking about here, Liz. I'm sure she wants one of those snazzy French ones for room décor."

He conveniently leaves out how he knows this about her little princess, how he used to engage in some less-than-exciting and emotionally detached carnal gymnastics with Liz's teenaged daughter, only to bite her and abuse her and fuck with her mind and memory, because Damon is a bad boyfriend. The worst.

But Liz doesn't need to know about any of this because Liz is his friend. Besides, he and Caroline have moved on from that dark period. She's got herself a nice little blonde jock who expresses appropriate amounts of concern for her well being, and Damon…well, Damon has no one. He's too busy trailing like a lost and hopeful puppy after a girl who loves his brother. This has been the case for over a century. Damon is a creature of habit.

"Thanks again for coming with me," Liz says, and she puts her hand on his arm and squeezes affectionately. Damon tries to ignore his rush of fondness, tries to tell himself the smile he gives her in return is all a ruse. But sometimes Damon is a liar. "Every year it's a struggle. Caroline and birthday presents."

"It's not a problem," Damon says smoothly, and he means it. Even though he's not a big fan of this cramped, musty space with all of its old things that aren't nearly as old as Damon himself, he has nothing else to do today. And being bored in an antique shop will save him from being bored elsewhere. Being bored elsewhere would probably end in a highly satisfying, but tragic way – full-bellied and blood on his mouth, maybe a dead body, maybe a new vampire. Not to mention finding himself on the receiving end of many a disapproving look.

So he combs through this antique shop with the sheriff by his side, looking for that perfect vintage rotary phone for the daughter she doesn't know is now a dead girl walking. That wasn't Damon's fault, though. He feels no guilt for that.

They submerge themselves in sections of hand carved furniture, Life magazines, and women's clothing in styles that Damon remembers quite well in quite a wonderful way: the feel of it, flimsy between his strong fingers as he ripped it off of soft-skinned bodies. Ah, sweet nostalgia, rampant through every room he chooses to pay attention to.

Liz likes the toy section. Damon smiles and nods when she wistfully picks up Slinkies and Etch-a-Sketches, Lincoln Logs, Paddle Balls and all sorts of other things technology-spoiled children these days would rather use to start forest fires. Damon had wooden toys as a child. He remembers the ill-made ones that gave him splinters. They made good hand-me-downs for Stefan.

He shakes the memories aside. That was a long, long time ago. He needs to stay in the present, in this confined room with its dusty, old trinkets.

Speaking of which, the baby dolls are fucking creepy.

"Yuck," Liz says, and she wears an expression of distaste that matches the word. "I was never into that whole pretend-to-be-a-mother-when-you're barely-out-of-toddlerhood crap."

"Yeah," Damon agrees, with a nod. "That's…really screwed-up."

But they're mesmerizing, these creepy dolls, some of which are laughable replicas of infants, others that are disturbingly life-like. And for all of her repugnance towards the concept, Liz is the one to get closer to the shelves, to cock her head curiously, and reach for one of the freaky little bastards.

Damon arches an eyebrow. "Uh, Caroline's a little old for one of those, don't you think, Liz?"

She's staring at the thing in her hands though, holding it under its chubby little arms like it's the real deal, and Damon peers over her shoulder though he's pretty much blinded by disinterest, and drops his head down to rest his chin by her neck.

Her hair brushes against his face as she turns just slightly to smile at him in that warm, indulgent way only people who are completely ignorant of what he is can.

"What. Is. It?" he asks in a tone mixed with derision and sweetness, clacking his jaw as he speaks to makes sure she feels it. She giggles when it tickles. Badass sheriff his ass.

It doesn't last long, though. Liz is a very serious person who looks at things very seriously.

"It looks like you," she says, her eyes on the doll in her hands. "It's uncanny."

"That's a baby," Damon says absently, still not nearly intrigued enough to give it a closer look.

"Yes, but it looks like you," she repeats, and she sounds so sure that he gives in with a sigh, focuses his eyes on the doll, which is porcelain-skinned with dark hair and wide blue eyes. And yeah, it does kind of look like him.

"I promise I didn't father an inanimate object," he says, and she laughs. She has a tinkling kind of laugh. Very pleasant to be around. Damon approves.

But they don't move on. She keeps holding it, staring at it, biting her bottom lip as if she's thinking hard, trying to make a decision and finally: "I'm getting it."

"You want to mother Baby-Me?" he asks, and licks his lips playfully. "Liz, if I'd known you were this kinky, I'd have gone antiquing with you ages ago."

She smacks his arm with the back of her hand. He grins.

"Not for me," she says, and stuffs the doll under one arm.

"For who then?" Damon asks, trailing her into the next room, filled with lamps. And phones. Finally, with the damn phones

He doesn't like that look Liz has on her face, though, when they stop in front of the perfect girly rotary phone that simply screams Caroline Forbes. It's a devious look. A playful look. But there's some kind of odd malice in there somewhere that makes Damon tilt his head and consider her with even more fondness than he usually does.

"For you," she says.

A few hours later sees Damon entering his bedroom with the doll's leg gripped carelessly in one hand. It was sweet of Liz to give him a present, he guesses, a token of friendship, even if it came off more as a confusing form of mockery.

He sighs, flings the fake baby aside, and listens to the sickening thump as its head hits the wall. He stares at the crumpled body all sad and useless on the floor, simultaneously shrugs an eyebrow and a shoulder. There's as good as anywhere.

"Welcome home, Baby Damon," he says. He sits on his bed and unties his shoes. He kicks them off and lays on his back, stares at the ceiling. Closes his eyes. He's alone again, where he belongs, disliked by everyone who knows what he is and what he's done, even if they do have a reluctant tolerance at times. He can't really blame them. His heart's only big enough for one girl, and he'd do away with anyone that wasn't her in a second, if it was necessary.

Including Liz, who gives him dumb presents on a whim.

Damon is a bad friend. This isn't news.

"You're lucky, you know," he says, his eyes popping back open and never straying from the ceiling. "You got my good looks, but none of that completely suck-ish human obligation. People don't look at you with their judgy little eyes and think 'why aren't you more like your puny Bambi-murdering brother?'"

Silence. Not that Damon was expecting a response, mind you. He's not that out of his mind.

"Yep," he says. "Must be the life. Being a plastic baby, I mean."

He's sure this is true, though he'd sooner forget the stupid doll was there than continue rattling off his feelings to it.

Decision made, Damon falls into a light, dreamless sleep.

He wakes up when Stefan comes home from school.

To be continued!