The Kid

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries does not belong to me. Original characters, such as Josh and Paco, are mine. This version of Mrs. Flowers is different from in the books. Brand names like John Deere are not mine.

A/N This is my new story. Season 3. A week before the 1920's school dance, Damon and Stefan deal with a teenager who comes for a visit. Briefly includes other regular characters, especially Katherine.

Chapter 1

"Who Are You?"

Damon came into the house and went into the study. He was annoyed at various things and wanted a drink. With a huff, he poured himself a generous amount of bourbon and took a swallow. Ah, yes. Good stuff. It should be; he paid good money for it.

He walked over to the computer desk and looked at the small pile of mail resting there. These days Mrs. Flowers brought it in. Although she was new to taking care of the big house, she now knew which envelopes were bills that she should open and that could be paid on line, so she opened them. Other mail she left for Damon or Stefan to open. She left the junk mail in a separate pile, not knowing what might catch their interest.

Damon now tossed away a couple of things. There was a letter for Stefan. He picked it up and smelled it, catching a faint woman's scent. The return address didn't include a person's name, so he was curious, but not enough to open his brother's mail.

In a minute, he headed up the stairs, taking his drink with him. At the head of the stairs he thought he caught the scent of someone else, male, not a scent he recognized. Walking slowly down the hall past his bedroom, he sniffed and listened. Two doors down from his bedroom, he stopped at the closed door of another bedroom and listened. He could hear slow breathing, a heartbeat and the soft pat of fingers on a computer.

Silently, he tested the doorknob. It turned, so he slowly opened the door and peeked inside. A boy, a youngish teenager, sat at the desk, his right side was partly toward Damon. The young fellow was working on a laptop on the desk. He was connected by ear buds to an iPod. His hair was a light brown and was combed forward in a Justin Bieber style.

Damon eased up behind the lad and said loudly, "Ahem."

The boy nearly jumped out of his chair, whipping around and then cringing when he saw the man standing so close to him with a scowl on his face. Fear touched the young face as he removed the earphones.

"And who are you?" Damon growled, arching an eyebrow and staring intently into the hazel eyes.

"J… Josh! Josh Salvatore," the boy stammered. He stood up from the chair and faced Damon, the chair between them.

"A Salvatore, huh? And why are you here?"

"I came to stay with Aunt Theo."

"Mrs. Flowers is your aunt?"

"Yes, sir. My great aunt, actually."

"And she said you could stay here?"

"Well … no, sir, not exactly. She said she'd, like, have to ask the brothers. Are you Mr. Salvatore? One of the brothers?"

"Yes. I'm Damon, the older brother. The master of this house, I might add."

"Please, Mr. Salvatore, I want to stay here. For a little while, anyway," Josh said.

Damon eyed the boy. He guessed he was about five feet four inches tall. He was in that stage that was no longer a child, but also not yet gangly. He had a young face and was a nice-looking boy, as were many of the Salvatores. His voice had not started to change yet. He was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans. No visible piercings.

"And why do you want to stay here?"

"I …uh…I got into an argument with my dad. He grounded me. I, like, left home."

"Ran away?"

"Sort of. Until he cools off."

"What'd you do to piss him off?"

"No big deal. I went riding with my bud Hal. He's got his restricted license now. I didn't, like, know he'd taken his mother's car without asking her. She thought someone had stolen the car and called the police. Anyway, Dad had to come get me from the police station. He went all weird on me and grounded me! He took my iPod and my phone! Made me stay in the guest room so I couldn't, like, get to any of my stuff in my room! Isn't that, like, you know, child abuse or something?" the boy stammered, flustered.

"I'm sure it just seems like it. So, you got stuff from your room anyway and took off for here?" Damon figured the small laptop had likely been in the off-limits room. The iPod, too. The boy probably had a backpack.

"Yeah."

"How'd you get here?"

"I hitchhiked."

"I suppose you know that's dangerous. Things might have happened to you."

"Nothing happened! Geez, you sound like my dad."

"I'm not your father, but I am an adult. We tend to see things a little differently from kids your age."

"No kidding," Josh muttered. "Are you going to make me leave here?"

"I haven't decided. Have you phoned your parents?"

"I live with my dad. My mother got married again and moved to New York City."

"And where do you usually live?"

"Richmond."

Damon was aware that a lot of the Salvatore family lived in Virginia, especially Richmond. They were mostly descendants of Pietro Salvatore, Damon and Stefan's baby brother. Peter, as he was called, had been brought up in Richmond by the family of their mother. He had married and had had many children.

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen. Almost fifteen." He wanted Damon to know he was no little kid.

"So, did you phone your father and tell him where you are?"

"No."

Damon had mixed feeling about this. Damon himself had had such a hard time with his own father, that he sometimes had negative feelings toward fathers, even if he didn't know the men. He told himself the boy's father was likely not beating him, just trying to discipline him. But why did the kid have to be here? Didn't he have other relatives to take him in? His mother, for instance?

"Damon?" said a woman behind him.

He turned to see Mrs. Theophilia Salvatore Flowers standing in the doorway. She was not a timid woman, but she looked hesitant and concerned as she used a hand to brush back a strand of gray hair. She was dressed neatly in blue slacks and a blue-flowered blouse.

"I was waiting for you to come home to tell you about Josh, but I see you two have already met," she said.

"Surprise. Surprise," Damon said, raising an eyebrow at the woman.

She was now functioning as manager of the big house and as a limited housekeeper. In truth, she was the latest Salvatore to lease the big house, since the brothers, as vampires, were not allowed to do so. Damon, Stefan and Mrs. Flowers were in the process of getting to know each other. The arrival of this boy was a wrinkle in the process.

"Josh, if you'll excuse us, I need to discuss this situation with Damon," she said to the boy.

She and Damon left the room, closing the door behind them. They headed for the back stairway and went down to the kitchen.

"Tea?" she asked. For herself she poured hot water into a cup with a tea bag.

"No. Okay, what's with Josh?" He sat down at the table. He still had his glass with a little bourbon in it, and he took a sip.

Sitting down also, the woman said, "Josh showed up on the front porch a couple of hours ago. I was surprised to see him, but I couldn't refuse to take him in. I told him he could stay only if it was all right with you. Damon, I know you probably don't want a teenager in the house. Just say so, and I'll try to make other arrangements."

"He's a Salvatore. Does he know about me and my brother? What we are?"

"As far as I know, he doesn't."

"If he stays, he's bound to find out. All hell is breaking loose with the Mikaelsons. I don't know if we can trust him to keep his mouth shut. Also, I don't know what he's into. Drugs. Alcohol. He better not get into my good liquor. Maybe he steals stuff. Nobody in this house right now smokes. I want to keep it that way."

"Me, too. He hasn't smoked anything since he got here," the woman said. She eyed him and raised an eyebrow. "Did you ever smoke cigarettes or a pipe?"

"Yes, to both, but it's been a while. You?"

"I did when I was young. No one really knew it led to the cancer and emphysema. Smoking contributed to my husband's death," the woman said. With a sigh, she added, "I hope Josh isn't into any of the stuff so many kids do these days."

"I'm sure he's no saint," Damon muttered with a snort. "I sure as hell wasn't when I was his age."

"So what's your decision?"

"I'll talk to him. Lay down a bunch of rules. He may figure his father's rules are less strict than mine and go home. And you better call his father before Josh gets listed as a missing kid."

"I will," Mrs. Flowers said, nodding. "Thank you for not just tossing him out of the house."

"I might yet," Damon said, finishing his drink.

A sudden loud noise made both of them jump.

"What the hell," Damon said as he stood up and strode down the hall toward the source of the somewhat musical noise. Was it the television in the living room? The stereo? No, it was the piano in the study.

Entering the room, he found Josh seated on the piano bench, attacking the piano keys with vigor, producing some sort of music.

"What are you doing?" Damon shouted at him, going to the baby grand piano that stood in the corner of the big study past the fireplace.

"I'm playing the piano. What does it look like?" the boy said with a grin, still playing.

"Don't you smart-mouth me!"

"I'm sorry, sir." Josh stopped playing and sat still, staring at Damon with an uncertain look in his eyes.

"You keep pounding on the keys like Jerry Lee Lewis and I'll have to call a piano tuner," Damon fumed.

"I was just playing a song I play at home. Geez. And who is Jerry Lee?"

"Someone way before your time, I guess. Played like that. Sort of."

"Cool."

"What the hell do you play on?" Damon asked in an accusatory voice.

"My digital keyboard. Me and my buds Hal and Rusty play our stuff in our garage. We write our own songs." Josh's expression said he was proud of their accomplishments.

"You call that music?" Damon said, waving his hands in the air. He knew he needed to calm down. The kid was playing the kind of music that many bands did play these days. And quite a bit of it he liked, when he was in the mood.

"Well, yeah, dude."

"Excuse me? Did you call me 'dude'?"

"Sorry. I meant 'Mr. Salvatore'."

Damon scowled daggers at the teen, who looked down at the keyboard, but didn't touch it.

After a long moment, Josh looked up at Damon and asked, "Do you play?"

"Sometimes. But nothing you ever heard of, I'm sure," Damon said with a snort.

"Would you show me?" the boy asked, getting up from the bench.

Damon had a feeling the kid was trying to soothe the older man's wrath by asking him to play something. He was going to refuse, but on the other hand, he wanted to show the boy that he really could play, so he sat on the bench and played a number that he liked and could play well.

"Cool," Josh said when Damon was done. "What's it called?"

"It's called 'Misty'."

"I don't know it. It's, like, a little slow. An oldie, I guess. Know anything a little more up-beat?"

Damon knew an old ragtime song which was certainly much more up-beat, so he played that.

"That's really cool, dude! Uh…Mr. Salvatore. I'd like to learn that," the boy said with more enthusiasm.

"That kind of song is called 'ragtime'. I'm sure you can learn it. And look, call me 'Damon', okay?"

"Are you sure? Like, half the time you sound like my dad."

"I'm not your dad! I'm way younger," Damon said indignantly.

"I'm sure. You don't have any gray hair. Dad's getting kinda old. I think he was 40 on his last birthday."

"He's getting up there, all right. How are you related to Mrs. Flowers, Josh?"

"She's my grandfather's sister. She's really old, but she's cool. Some old folks just, like, sit around and hardly do anything. But not her. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah. I think your aunt still has a lot of energy. That's why she came here to run this house. Look, I'll give you a chance to stay here for a little while. No smoking, drinking liquor or doing drugs. No riding around in stolen cars. No staying out late."

"I'm cool with that, Damon," Josh said readily.

Damon thought he agreed too quickly. He had, as yet, no way to know how truthful the youth was.

In a moment, as Damon rose from the piano bench, the boy asked, "So, can I play my songs?"

"I guess. Look, if I get tired of hearing it, I'll yell at you. That means stop playing, okay?"

"Cool."

"And don't pound on the keys. It's not necessary."

"Okay."

Damon went up to his room, which unfortunately was right over the study. He could easily hear the piano. After an annoyed couple of minutes, he had to admit the kid was really playing a recognizable melody, but mostly a lot of chords. He wondered how the father and the neighbors liked to hear that coming from the garage. Probably one or more of the friends played guitar with the amplifier turned up. Probably one of them played drums. Still, musicians had to start somewhere.

A/N I hope you will like this new story. Somehow, Josh will stumble into one problem or conflict after another, much to Damon's annoyance. Comments, please.