A/N: Inspired by Chapter 6 of Darkshines by Alicia of the Temptation on I'll be posting this there and here on Y gallery at the same time so people can read it in both places. There will be more of this eventually as I get time to write on it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries or it's characters, I only own their actions in this story.
The storm clouds rolled in, the dark winds bellowed, as rain pelted down on the glass panes in the window. The roaring winds shaking the tightly clenched latch at the center of the windows as a small bit of moisture seeped between the aging putty. He sat alone in the dark room watching the rain fall and the thunder roll while the lighting stabbed at the tormented night's sky. Nights like this he missed his sister. He missed how she'd go down to the kitchen before their Aunt died, and come back up with a couple mugs of cocoa and they'd just sit and watch the rain come in. He sighed and picked up the black mug beside him, sipping the thick red liquid that filled it. Time was, when even this little bit of human blood would have driven him into a blood frenzy. The perks of being almost a thousand years old now.
'Well, one of the perks.' Jeremy thought to himself as he moved his longer hair out of his eyes. There were a quite a few perks to being this old. But the one he sometimes cursed was the one that also brought him the most joy. A bitter sweet smile played across his face as he turned slightly to his left and watched as the lightning illuminated the room, enough that with his vampire eyes he was able to see the paintings that filled the room. Painting's he'd done years ago from memory. There was a tribute to Vicki, his first love. Then one of Anna, her sad eyes captured perfectly in the oil paint. Next there was Bonnie as he chose to remember her, hair done just so, the mask over her face, their first unofficial date. There was a painting of Tyler not far from that, his first boyfriend after turning. Tyler's majestic features coming out of the mist of fog he'd stepped out of one day years ago.
Hundreds of paintings lined the walls of this, his lost ones' room. Jeremy loved being a vampire, reveled in it. But there were times on nights like these that he hated having out lived almost everyone he knew by far. Out lived by their natural deaths of old age or watched them cut down in their prime. His mind flashed back to how Klaus had brutally murdered Bonnie and left her burning corpse on the front lawn of the school. He'd promised her spirit he'd make sure no one else got a hold of all the grimoires she'd collected by that point in her life. It was how he came to start his hidden library of spell books and magical artifacts. You live a long time and you start to notice the patterns the world fell into. He looked up at the ceiling where he'd painted the massive clock he'd seen in his dreams, what was it… almost four hundred years ago.
He'd said up for two days painting it, only stopping when the thirst took him. But it worked as a giant calendar, for when things would pop up again. As he cast his eyes along the gold markings on the azure blue ceiling, he sighed inwardly. 'The time of the marking.' He looked back down and picked up his drink. There would be a new werewolf born tomorrow night, a few more of Klaus' hybrids born into the world, a new witch would take her or his power, and Tyler would come out of hiding. He looked up at the markings again and nodded, definitely a male witch. 'Well, I'd better make sure everything's ready.' Jeremy stood with no effort and walked silently through the ancient looking house. He paused at a near by window and looked down as he saw a car driving up the lane.
"Always early." He sighed, and resumed his stride. Klaus' little temper tantrum of a revenge plot had burned down Jeremy's child hood home and left him dying. Damon had just enough strength left to sire Jeremy. By all accounts it shouldn't have worked, what with Jeremy being a supernatural being now that he'd been brought back from the dead once by magic, not counting his father's ring. No, it had caused other quirks in him that had been unforeseen. He smiled to himself as he walked the halls of the house he'd rebuilt on the spot of their old house. Almost a thousand years ago he'd rebuilt, and almost a thousand years ago he'd turned up in Klaus' London flat, five of Klaus' favorite hybrids dead at his feet. He'd walked away a little bloody, but Klaus was the one who was currently occupying no less then eleven vervain and wolfsbane filled steel boxes submerged in a pool of the same mixture inside a lime stone filled niche that Jeremy had built in nearly earthquake proofed locations around the world. He had no hopes that this would kill Klaus. Only that he'd feel a lot of pain for a long time. He paused in one of the rooms he passed to look at his stock pile of vervain, wolfsbane, and blue monkshood.
Oddly enough the hybrids had faults that Klaus had never thought of. While vervain burned their vampire side it did nothing to their wolf side. And wolfsbane burned their wolf side but left the vampire untouched. Neither was strong enough, but a lot of experimenting and a passion to make someone hurt for killing his family, and Jeremy had discovered that blue monkshood, a very rare herb, had the power to drop a hybrid like either of the other herbs did the race they most damaged. He smiled at himself for having figured that out as he walked through the house and opened a door on the second floor, peering in to see that the room was just as Tyler had left it. Taking in the fresh look of the room Jeremy was glad his cleaner had taken care of everything as he had requested.
Tyler Lockwood only came to visit once every fifty years. When the moon was in the right place for new werewolves to be born into the world, who wouldn't know about their curse for years to come, but were werewolves just the same. A werewolf would never answer the moon's call until they had taken a life, even accidentally, and with it forfeited their protection from the curse. From then on they would be trapped in the moon's treacherous sway. He heard the heart beat of the person as they got out of the car used his vampire speed to be at the front door just as the man walked up, his short black hair wet from the torrent of rain.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" He asked.
"Tyler, you are always welcome in my home." Jeremy smiled as he opened the door fully and stepped out of the way.
"What ever Gilbert." Tyler said coldly.
"You haven't turned your switch back on I see." Jeremy shrugged as he lead the way to the kitchen where he pulled a couple blood packs from the fridge and threw one at Tyler.
"Not yet." He said in answer to Jeremy's question. He lived for fifty years at a time as a wolf in the wild life preserver up state. And for fifty years at a time he kept his humanity switched off so that he was at peace with his wolf as it raged against the world. He only ever turned it back on when he came to stay with Jeremy. Their bond had always been deep, whither enemies, rivals, friends, or lovers. But when Jeremy all but killed Klaus, the bond of a sired vampire bonded him from Klaus to Jeremy.
"Once you've fed, and rested, would you think about it?" Jeremy asked, keenly aware that if he ordered it, Tyler would have little choice in the mater.
"I'll think about it." Tyler said, his voice thick with the blood he was drinking straight from the blood bag. It was his way of saying he'd do it. He knew the rules for staying at Jeremy's house during these rare times. He had to be willing to feel his emotions and to have his humanity switched on while he staid here.
"That's all I ask." Jeremy smiled, he knew Tyler would submit with out being told to. Deep down Tyler liked to submit. He hated to admit it to himself but he really liked that Jeremy had the inclinations of a strong willed master when they were in the bedroom. "I do have another house guest this year. I'll ask you not to eat him." Tyler raised an eyebrow as Jeremy smirked and pulled his black bathrobe tighter on his pale body. He'd filled out so much after he'd died, since all he had was time and he'd built up a lot of muscle over the years.
"You're seeing someone?" Tyler asked, his humanity slowly creeping back in.
"Maybe." Jeremy shrugged in a noncommittal way.
"You don't know?" Tyler quirked an eyebrow again.
"Well we only started seeing one another recently. He came here to see if the rumors were true. And.. well I decided he'd look better naked on my ivory sheets."
"Rumors?" Tyler tried to focus on anything but a new man in Jeremy's life.
"You've been ignoring the people again haven't you." Jeremy chided. "The hybrids are growing restless. They started attacking and transforming openly. Forced with the realization that there were werewolf vampire hybrids they had to assume that both of the other races existed as well. It's been a media frenzy for the last twenty five years." Jeremy sighed. "And when people started looking at the history files on this house and me… they started to notice that for a thousand years there'd been a Jeremy Gilbert registered here."
"And they started asking questions?" Tyler looked concerned.
"Well people started turning up asking questions here and there. But thankfully I'd had a thousand years to plan for something like this happening. So I have a supply system in place that delivers the blood hidden in other things, and for a while I played it off as a good likeness to an family ancestor."
"But?"
"But then they did a digital face comparison and started to put two and two together." Jeremy stretched. "I answer a few questions a month and they leave me in peace the rest of the time."
"You're giving away secrets about vampires?" Tyler felt the shock cross his face.
"That's why I limit the amount of questions. That and with the hybrids hunting down so many vampires as well as all the werewolves they can find… it's no like humanity doesn't need to know." He sipped his cup full of room temperature blood. "Besides, with out Elena's blood or Klaus' for that matter, the only way to make a hybrid is by them breeding." Jeremy sighed.
"I'm sorry about your sister." Tyler realized too late that his hand had went to Jeremy's cheek.
"Thanks." Jeremy held Tyler's hand against his face.
"A thousand years doesn't dull the pain does it." Tyler gave a weak smile.
"At least I got the bastard back for what he did to us." Jeremy went from across the island in the kitchen to next to Tyler. "And for now… that counts…" He let his lips crush against the hybrid's warm lips, drinking in the warmth as well as the feel of his long time lover. And hesitantly he pulled apart from the hybrid who tried to follow him. "I need to explain things to Terry first." Jeremy gave Tyler another, more chased, kiss before leaving the kitchen.
"damn it." Tyler cursed under his breathe as his loins re-awoke after fifty years of non-use. "perfect." He uttered as he looked down at the hand shaped ruts in the marble countertop he'd been leaning against.
Jeremy stood in the doorway to Terry's room, his robe falling open slightly as he watched the early morning light filter through the storm clouds. He looked down at his silver bracelet on his left wrist with its lapis lazuli stone in the center of a set of stones. He'd went to Bonnie's family and found one of them with enough magic to enchant the stones and metal so he could walk in day light. Now here he was hundreds of years after that witch's death and still dependent on her magic to keep him safe while he walked through the sun of the waking world.
"Hey…" Terry yawned, his shaggy blonde hair falling around his face as he sat up, his sculpted man flesh taking on blue tones from the morning light.
"You remember how I told you I was expecting company?" Jeremy walked forward till his knees met the edge of the bed. Terry leaned forwards and untied Jeremy's sash holding his robe close in the middle.
"Yeah?" Terry looked up, sliding his hand into the robe and tracing Jeremy's abs gently.
"Tyler's here." Terry's hand stopped and he stared to with drawl his hand.
"do i have to go?" Terry looked up through his long fringe up at Jeremy's face, which was slightly obscured by the room's dark shade.
"I don't know yet." Jeremy's hand moving lightning fast to capture Terry's hand where it was just as it tried to leave his robe. "I just don't know."
~ tbc ~