Hi y'all. It's been a while.
I'm just gonna say this straight: I fucked up. In 2014, an opportunity to publish fanfiction as LEGITIMATE FICTION came into my life, and I took it. I pulled down stories and put them on amazon, and after it was done, I couldn't get out of the contract. No matter how much screaming we did about the US only clause, there wasn't anything we could do. Then a miracle happened: the publishing division CLOSED and all of us got our rights back!
So I'm putting the stories back where they belong:
HERE.
For free.
Content Ratings restored.
I'm so sorry. I was selfish, and blind, and I know a lot of y'all are pissed off. You have every right.
MBT will be fully restored, original author notes and all. For Unthinkable, Sounds of Tomorrow, and Birthday Girls Love Boys Night, I'm gonna get you as close as I can, but some of my files are missing. Karma, I guess. I'm not even gonna tweak punctuation or anything that's going to embarrass the living fuck out of me and the writer I am now, because this was where we started. Where *I* started - clumsy and figuring it out, and with your endless support.
I couldn't have gotten to where I am today without you. And I'm so sorry I took these stories down.
Warning about Auto In: DOWNLOAD THE HELL OUT OF IT! It's being reworked as an original fiction, but I'm changing the gender of the main characters, and at some point, if push comes to shove, I may have to pull for copyright because so much is being kept.
Again: DOWNLOAD AUTO IN! I don't care – PLEASE! Keep it as it is now, because it is in a phoenix state, and I want you guys to be able to have BOTH: The original, and the re-roll with a new plotline.
Thus concludes my long apology, and without further ado:
Your story.
-goldnox
Chapter 1: Regret
"Rise and shine, jerk of mine."
I hear the curtains being ripped open and light floods into the bedroom. I swear my eyeballs just caught on fire.
"Fuck," I groan because everything hurts. Bad.
"Fuck is right," Elena says and the edge of the bed dips as she sits beside me. I bury my head under the pillow, wishing like hell my stomach would stop flipping and I could just melt into the sheets and disappear. "Roll over."
"No," I mumble and go still at the cup of ice cubes she's rattling. This is not my first introduction to this disturbing brand of torture her parents passed to her and subsequently on to me.
"I'm gonna count to three and then its ice all over your back."
"That's so unfair."
"One."
"I'm not a child, you know," I growl.
"Two…"
"There's no need to be cruel. I'm in enough pain as it is."
"Three," she says and I roll over onto my back, scowling as menacingly as possible without opening my eyes. Her fingertips gently touch the right side of my face. "How's the jaw?"
"Super," I grumble and she smacks me. Not as hard as she usually does, but it still stings like a bitch. I mumble a curse and she replaces her traitorous hand with an ice pack. It feels better, but it's doing little to help curb the hangover that's ravaging the rest of my body.
"You ready to explain why Boy's Night ended with you calling me at three A.M., too drunk to drive you and Jeremy home?"
I groan again.
"How much whiskey did you drink?"
"The whiskey wasn't the problem," I admit and my stomach lurches. "It was the tequila we chased it with. The absinthe probably didn't help."
"Damon!" she hisses and the sound claws its own tunnel through my brain.
"Relax, the green fairy was all me," I assure her. "I cut him off after the Cuervo."
"Fantastic," she deadpans.
"Why does my jaw hurt again?" I honestly can't even remember at this point.
"Well, let's see. When I pulled up Jeremy was puking, you were laughing, and before I was even out of the car he turned around and punched you in the face."
"Left hand?" I confirm.
"Yep."
"Fucking ring."
"Don't even think about it, Damon," she warns me. "He's paying for it already. He's been throwing up for the last two hours."
"Serves him right," I mutter. "How much trouble am I in?"
"Tons," she says and the fact that the last thing I remember is pulling out my cellphone to call her is starting to worry me. I shift to test my muscles, trying to discern if anything is broken because it feels like I've been run over by a train. My concern gets ratcheted up when I find something where it's not supposed to be.
"Elena?"
"Yep."
"What is on my ankle?"
"Your belt," she tells me matter of factly. "Well, part of it at least."
"Please tell me it was something kinky…"
"You wish," she scoffs and I wince. "Sometime while I was getting Jeremy into bed you apparently decided that you had one leg that was shorter than the other."
"I-"
"Oh, it gets better. I get into our room to find you with one leg strapped to the foot of the bed, yanking against it so you could 'even things out.' When I tried to explain the reason for the difference was because you only had one boot on, you accused me of sabotaging your personal growth."
I snort and instantly regret it. My chest feels like a ruin of ice picks and landmines.
"I didn't break the bed, did I?"
"Nope, just the belt when you pulled some sort of flying leap in the direction of the bathroom, snapping the belt in half and cracking your head on the floor. That's when things got really fun," she says and it's impossible to miss the sarcasm.
I'm in deep shit.
"You got pissed about the blood in your hair and decided that it would make the world a better place if you were to shave your head instead of just taking a shower."
"No…"
"'Everyone, and I do mean everyone, Elena, is sexier bald,'" she says in a harsh impression of me. "Including Sigourney Weaver, Natalie Portman and Demi Moore. When I pointed out those were women, your reply was, 'One word-'"
"Bruce Willis," I vaguely remember.
"The best part was the 'Yippie-ki-yay, Motherfucker' right before you turned on the clippers."
"Elena, I'm scared," I pout and she takes my hand and places it on my head. I breathe a sigh of relief when I find all my hair, right where it should be. "Thank you," I whisper.
"No problem. Although when I wrestled them out of your hand and broke them, you weren't as thankful as you are now."
I'm glad I have my eyes closed. I don't want to see the death glare I can feel her giving me.
"In fact, you very politely," she says and I cringe, "asked that in the morning when I was done sanitizing your baby rattles if I could remind you to call your tattoo artist."
"Great. I'm sure I want to know the reason for this?"
"Of course," she says far too cheerfully and my pulse spikes in fear. "It was so you could get BAMFV tattooed in big letters across your stomach because no one ever treated Tupac like they're four."
"BAMFV?"
"Bad Ass Mother Fucking Vampire."
"Awesome." I am never going to hear the end of this. I wouldn't be surprised if she recorded the whole thing and it's already on YouTube.
"The crowning jewel was you throwing up some sort of gang sign, slurring 'Damon, out,' and collapsing on the bed."
I peek one eye open. "You're pretty," I tell her as adorably as I can and she cocks an eyebrow at me. "And sexy," I grin and she crosses her arms. "Forgiving?" I try and she rolls her eyes. "And the best thing to ever happen to a girl like me," I croon and she laughs quietly.
"And?"
"And about to get a whole bunch of jewelry," I promise, taking her hand and laying it on my chest.
"Nope."
"Two weeks in Bruges?" I offer and she shakes her head.
"Nuh-uh."
"Why not? Colin Ferrell loved it."
"Hilarious."
"Whatever you want, it's yours," I say and close my eyes, hoping she'll just let me go back to sleep.
Her phone vibrates on the nightstand and she releases me to check it, quickly tapping out a return text.
"Animal, vegetable or mineral?" I ask and she's quiet for a minute.
"It's Caroline."
"It's too early for Barbie to ruin my life," I grunt.
"Everything's fine. She just wanted to tell me something. It's not important," Elena says and there's a slightly bitter edge to her tone. Something nags at the back of my brain but I'm having trouble placing it. "So, guess what you're doing today?" Elena says brightly and distracting me from the feeling that something is very, very wrong.
"Going back to sleep and then having lots of apology sex?"
"Not even close."
I don't know what I've gotten myself into but this suddenly feels like a little more than just getting her under-age brother wasted.
Under-age…
FUCK.
I sit up too fast and everything explodes with pain but I don't care. I'm such a fucking asshole. I can't believe she's even in the room with me right now.
"Good, you're up," she smirks. "Because you're going to go take a shower and get dressed before we go get your car. Which I hope was towed."
"Elena-"
She gives me a look that cuts me into pieces. This was not how this morning was supposed to go. I was supposed to get up in plenty of time to make her breakfast, bring it to her in bed and spend the rest of the morning here until she passed out from blissful exhaustion.
She has to be so hurt.
And I am so royally fucked.
"After that we can talk about how you are never going to get Jeremy that drunk again. He is not Stefan, he is not Ric, and you promised me you would take care of him when I leave for school."
I swallow under the pummel of wounding names and the uppercut of a reminder of what's supposed to happen in a few days.
The guilt is a vervain-coated wrecking ball.
She's already stressed out about starting school, worried about leaving Jeremy, grieving over Bonnie and being incredibly patient with me constantly bitching and trying to bribe her with alternate life plans that keep her in my bed and not in a dorm in Richmond. And how do I choose to "console" her? By getting both me and her little brother blistering drunk, and apparently making the biggest ass of myself possible while being a total dick to her.
I'm surprised she didn't confiscate my daylight ring before she opened the curtains.
Who calls their girlfriend at three A.M. for a ride because they're plastered? I'm sure lots of guys do, that quickly end up single.
Especially when they pull that shit on the morning of her birthday.
"I'm-"
"Don't," she snaps, shoving a glass of warmed blood into my hands. I stare at it staggered, wishing Bonnie was still here to burst my brain into flames. This is just getting worse. "Drink that and get in the shower. We have stuff to do today."
"Elena, today is-"
"I know what today is," sneers at me. "It's Saturday. And I'm sure you're eager to have the declaration of your bad-ass-ness tattooed across your stomach."
She gets up to leave the room and I can't even bring myself to stop her.
"Shower. Now," she commands and shuts the door harshly behind her.
I knock back the blood and scramble for my phone, texting Caroline my credit card number and set of instructions. I don't even care if she goes on some crazy shopping spree on my dime as long as she does what I'm begging.