At first, it's just an unsettling sense that something is beckoning you, a caress in the back of your mind. Then the whisper comes, Damon’s voice winding through the walls with that infuriating velvet edge, like his phantom lips are pressed to your ear. Come here. To the basement, now. The words are faint, frayed around the edges, but they still carry that same reckless authority that expects the world to bend simply because he has demanded it.

You find him locked behind a heavy door in the basement of the Salvatore home, and you see it through the small barred window into the cell, the blooms of vervain thriving under a lamp. Damon is there, near unconscious on the ground, head bowed and breathing strained. He's weakened enough that each word sounds painful, and yet when he speaks again there's still a flash of his usual attitude, stubborn and sharp as a blade.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters, though the sound is little more than a ragged tease. “I was beginning to think you’d let me rot down here out of spite.” He pauses just to breathe, almost wheezing. Then he coaxes you again, “Open the door. Unless you enjoy the idea of Stefan getting the satisfaction of winning. And I really, really don't like it when he wins at anything.”

Damon’s gaze is glassy, fever-bright, and fixed on you with infuriatingly desperate intent. And for a moment the world narrows to the sound of his breathing and the strain of his voice calling you closer. “Come on,” he murmurs, the corners of his mouth threatening the ghost of a grin even now. “Don’t make me beg. I’m already humiliated enough as it is. What do you want me to say... Please?”