Damon's New BFF
By: White Rain
Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries.
Genre: Damon's general loserness
Character/Pairing: Damon, Stefan, ensemble; background like woah Stefan/Elena
Word Count: 834
Rating: PG
Summary: Damon adopts a squirrel.

The stupid thing followed him into the house.

*

Damon stared at the squirrel.

The squirrel, tiny hands holding a jelly bean he'd taken from Elena's stash of candy, stared back at him.

"Don't you have any self-preservation instincts?" Damon asked. "People eat mammals like you."

The squirrel nipped at the pink candy.

"If my brother eats you, it's your own fault," Damon told it matter of factly.

*

"I draw the line at this," Damon snapped as the squirrel climbed up his bed and settled down on his favorite pillow. "You things are supposed to run away from people."

The squirrel closed its eyes.

"Are you going to snuggle me now?" Damon asked and then the squirrel moved closer to him and nuzzled his arms. Damon glared at it then sighed. "Yeah. I asked for that."

*

"How can you even lift that?" Damon asked as the squirrel ran into his room, holding Stefan's most recent diary. He bent down to take the book out of its tiny and furry squirrel hands. "I shouldn't."

The squirrel chirped.

"But who am I to deny an enabler," Damon said and opened the diary.

In Stefan's neat handwriting: Damon. This is a fake.

In Elena's loopy handwriting: I'm disappointed in you.

"Like I'm going to feel guilty for reading his diary," Damon huffed. "It's my God-given right as an older brother. Right?"

Not even a chirp. The squirrel was digging up an acorn it had stashed in Damon's underwear drawer.

"If I'm going to talk to a rodent," Damon said and watched the thing eat its acorn, "I'm giving you a name. Noemi."

If Noemi happened to be the name he'd chosen for his first daughter with Katherine. Well. No one had to know where he got the name.

*

"I've been meaning to ask you," Stefan asked as he walked into the kitchen, "why do you have a squirrel following you around?"

"To torment you, of course," Damon said, tossing a peanut in Noemi's direction. She caught it smoothly. Though there really wasn't any doubt about that. They'd been practicing. Not they needed to. Noemi was an instant pro. Which wasn't surprising, as she had enough insight and brilliance to hang out with Damon, meaning she was obviously a squirrel genius. "Every time you see her, you'll be haunted by the things you've done to her kind."

Stefan rolled his eyes.

"Are you going to wear that?" Damon asked, finally taking a good look at his little brother.

Damon enjoyed Stefan's face as he internally debated rather or not to take the bait. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Elena is giving you a second chance," Damon said, slowly. Noemi, finished with her lunch, ran up his leg, side, and back and rested on his head. "You don't want to give her any reason to change her mind, do you?"

"Whatever, Damon," Stefan said.

But Damon heard Stefan go to his room and change his clothes.

*

"She let me go," Damon said to Noemi, taking another pull of his drink. "Like I have anywhere else to go. Like there is anyone else."

Noemi patted his ankle. A warm feeling built up in Damon's heart. Then she took a chocolate covered almond out of his sock.

"Is that all I'm good for?" Damon shouted.

Noemi ate her candy, blinking up at him.

Damon looked at the bottle he was holding. He couldn't even read it. He turned to his squirrel. "If you tell anyone about this..."

Damon would look back with a certain amount of pride in himself that he tossed the bottle aside and went to bed instead of finishing threatening Noemi, who couldn't rat out on him, even if she wanted to.

*

"This is an intervention," Elena said.

"For what?" Damon asked, petting Noemi's ears with two fingers.

"Look at yourself," Matt said. "You're cuddling a squirrel."

Damon shrugged.

"This isn't healthy." Stefan sat down next to him on the couch and gave him his best I FEEL FOR YOUR INTERNAL ANGST EVEN MORE THAN MY OWN look and set a hand on his shoulder. "You're talking to it."

"And you named it," Caroline said, folding her arms. "This is a sickness."

"It's perfectly healthy to have a pet," Damon said, giving his brother a pointed look.

"Of course it is." Elena sat down on the arm of the couch and took his hands in hers. "But. You've been binging on how to turn a squirrel into a vampire."

"Which is as sad as it is wrong," Bonnie said.

"How did you know this?"

"Dude, if you're going to use my laptop for secrecy, remember to erase your history," Jeremy said.

Damon didn't dignify that with a response. Mostly because he didn't have one. "I won't turn her into a vampire and you guys will never bring this up again. Deal?"

"Deal," Elena said and smiled down at him.

*

Things went smoothly after that. Until Noemi had kittens and Stefan suggested Damon name them after the Backstreet Boys.