A.N.: I decided to change how the Salvatore name was continued; a very young marriage that ended in tragedy for Damon's wife, but continued the Salvatore bloodline.

Also, I was inspired a little by the novel Lothaire by Kresley Cole (she's a genius!) about a 3000-year-old sadistic vampire, and it got me thinking about Klaus. I don't like Klaus; I really wish the writers hadn't extended the part just because the actor was good.

I want Elijah back! The suits, the haircut, the charm, his ability to decapitate someone with a well-placed slap! Shirt-sleeves pushed up to rip out vampires' hearts without getting any blood on his shirt? Now that is exquisitely terrifying.

Klaus just has a lot of temper-tantrums; he seems like a sociopathic brat to me. As elder-brother, shouldn't Elijah have put him in his place?

I'm also really pissed that even Klaus and Elijah seemed to have been hung up on an incarnation of Elena in the past. I just don't get it. Nina Dobrev is pretty, yes, but I can think of a dozen actresses more 'exquisite' than her (that's Elijah's description of Tatia, the Petrova sacrifice).


Drunken Binges, Funerals and Formals

02


One hundred and forty-five years as a vampire, and in that time, there was only one descendent in his family line that Damon could say with utmost sincerity that he loved and held above everything in the world. And the only person alive, dead or enjoying their afterlife, whom he allowed to see the side of him that he had all but lost on his transition to vampire.

The first female born to the Salvatore line in generations, she was also an only-child, and had grown up with only her father and two vampire 'uncles' as role-models. The good her father inspired in her was somewhat railroaded whenever 'Uncle Damon' crept into town, especially since she hit puberty and Damon had started teaching her how to live. His deepest, darkest secret, one he'd only ever told her, when she had been far too young to even remember, let alone be compelled to forget, was that he missed being human. And he'd be damned if he let her miss out on every opportunity humanity could offer her.

In recent years, reading too many psychology magazines, the better to understand her dick boyfriend's aggression and ego, she had posed the question whether Damon loved her over every other descendent because there was a measure of narcissism in him.

Every time he saw Giulia she got more and more striking. But she was a sixteen-year-old girl who loved her best-friends and let her boyfriend treat her…well, worse than he would his pet dog. She was the tall, shy girl in her group of friends, who included the elusive Elena Gilbert he had coerced Giulia with bourbon to tell him all about; Giulia was the girl too afraid of losing her best-friend to break up with her boyfriend.

An enigmatic, seductive mentor had once told him to go for the girls who buttoned themselves up: his youngest descendent was and wasn't one of those girls. She was shy, let herself get treated like a doormat, but she was ladylike and tomboyish by equal measure, and in the sixteen years of watching over her like some vampiric fairy-godfather, he had seen such unfailing, uncompromising kindness develop in her personality. She kept herself private, something she had learned from her slightly reclusive father; but there was also another part of her that took after Damon exactly. The part of her that loved to party, to 'run away' with him to theme-parks and concerts, go drinking at the Grill and learn the tricks of the vampire lifestyle despite being human; she had always wanted to understand him, been too fascinated with Damon's lifestyle to be repulsed or terrified by it, and he had coaxed and nurtured her to not be afraid of the part of herself that liked to let loose.

She was most like her father, just, quiet, but as someone who had known her mother, which Giulia never had, Damon knew there was a huge part of her that was her mother, too, the part of her that lived for ballroom-dancing, the part of her that had developed a sophisticated, calm personality that lapsed sometimes into flashes of a fierce, fun-loving woman who would've made a match for Damon all these years if she had been a vampire. His little human 'niece' kept him honest; she let him stop being nefarious, if only for sometimes just an afternoon, so he could pretend that he was still the carefree, fun-loving human he had once been. Especially since the years let her grow more and more beautiful, more and more like Damon, and people who saw them out together assumed he was her elder-brother. He could pretend to be human with her, in a way he never had before.

For someone who was unfailingly kind to others, even to her own detriment, it was ironic that she favoured Damon over Stefan, but their bond was uncanny; he could remember telling her stories about Stefan in his Ripper phase to terrify her when he 'babysat', watched her pale eyes grow wide as she cuddled into his side for protection, clutching her little purple-haired doll, this tiny, warm little black-haired dumpling buried under duvets in a huge bed, her bedroom tucked deep in the bowels of a shadowy mansion full of memories and monsters.

The same little darling who, as a five-year-old, would sneak into his bed for a cuddle whenever Uncle Stefan the bunny-killer came to visit, making him promise to protect her from the Ripper; the little girl who would bring him cups of coffee to "make him warm"; the little girl who knew by the age of six which was his favourite scotch, and would always pour him a glass after dinner, when he would sit in the library in front of the fire, her sitting in his lap with her doll and blanket, and he would read to her.

It gave Damon a lot of enjoyment that his little 'niece' Giuliette—'Giulia' since she was a very little girl—was afraid of Stefan, not him. Of course, Stefan took her preference of Damon as some sort of manipulation on Damon's part, that he had trained Giulia to believe that he was good and honest. To her, he was. But she was the only one. And she was the only one, though she didn't know it, who didn't have to worry about being collateral damage in the middle of the century-long war between brothers. He wouldn't let anything happen to her. Her life was too precious.

The benefit of having her complete loyalty; when he was sweet to her, she kept his secret so he could continue to be the 'evil' brother. He had taught her that it was a game, that he was the evil big-brother who tormented the Ripper who couldn't stop throwing himself over the edge, because he had forced Damon to turn a hundred and forty-five years ago. In Giulia, he enjoyed his only true friend.

He had been listening for her, heard her shower, her hair-dryer, the music she played while she got ready for school; when he heard her footsteps, he smirked and opened the stuffed book bound in recycled turquoise leather that he had taken from Giulia's leather-topped Louis desk while she slept. He did things like that, knowing he'd get her riled, and she'd stand up for herself.

She could stand up to a 170-year-old vampire with supernatural strength, speed and little appreciation for human life or collateral damage, but she wouldn't stick up for herself when her sixteen-year-old boyfriend was being a dick to her.

And she wouldn't let Damon kill the bastard either.

Opening up the diary to the last entry—he had gone through magazine cuttings, newspaper articles, postcards, paintings, mini scrapbook pages and sketches last night, reading about how things were with her ex-boyfriend—he smirked, sipped his coffee, and started to read his favourite passage from it, "I miss Uncle Damon when he's away; my pal. He made me swear not to tell that he'd be back in Mystic Falls this week. He told me he wanted to see the comet… He saw it the first time it passed through Mystic Falls… I hate how infrequent his visits are. Dad thinks he's a bad influence…"

A soft gasp issued in the hall, then a soft growl, and the footsteps hurried; his smirk turned into a lazy grin as his 'niece' strode into the kitchen.

Perhaps there was a measure of narcissism in Damon's love for Giulia. Every time he saw her, she grew to look more and more like him. Giulia could have been Damon's sister, though she was several years younger than he had been when Katherine had turned him. By the time Giulia reached her mid-twenties, they would look like twins.

Strikingly beautiful, her colouring was a vivid contrast; thick black hair with natural wave to it shone in the spotlights high in the kitchen ceiling, her complexion pale as moonlight, and flawless; she had inherited Damon's glowing silvery-grey eyes, eyebrows neatly shaped and groomed, her face deceptively clean of makeup but every feature subtly defined. She was tall, as tall as Damon, and, not heavy, she wasn't exactly a frail little flower; there was strength in the incredibly long legs she revealed in her dark-teal lace dress, an unstructured blazer of black cotton thrown over the top with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, and Damon had started teasing her since her training-bra days that she had inherited the gorgeous breasts of Florentine ancestresses who had been famous beauties. She was tall, slim but not skinny, strong due to her numerous athletic interests, and had the chest to balance her long, long legs.

A girl, but a girl raised by her laidback and almost reclusive father, and sometimes two vampire fairy-godfathers, Giulia had grown up wearing baseball henleys and jeans, the better to climb trees in and run about playing baseball. That had changed when she was thirteen, when a woman named Miranda had taken Giulia under her wing, and Damon had watched Giulia evolve more and more into a young woman with every visit he sprang on her.

Damon knew he was drop-dead gorgeous (pun intended) and he used his attractiveness to his advantage; but he watched with silent hilarity as Giulia went on without the slightest clue how staggering she was. From a girl who loved to roughhouse with her favourite 'uncle', pleased that she could make him laugh showing him her ability to fight, and chasing Stefan around the yard with an axe at three years old for eating her bunnies, she was now an incredibly beautiful girl who had absolutely no idea how stunning she was, and little patience for shopping. She teased Damon that he was more high-maintenance than her; and that was probably true, but he knew she loved the odd manicure, craved opportunities to wear her mother's jewellery, and indulged her best-friends' love for makeovers, doing their hair, facials, etc. at sleepovers.

Having observed Giulia and her girlfriends for several months, since seeing the mysterious Elena waiting for her parents at the bonfire, Damon knew Giulia embodied the lazy attitude toward personal style; everything about Giulia was effortless, she didn't have to try, and if she had been more aware of her physical appeal, she might have been a different girl and thus more high-maintenance, but she wasn't. She was lazy at best, and that reflected in her choice of outfits; simple dresses, textured tops with a faithful few pairs of jeans, delicate jewellery she didn't have to bother to change up. She took an irreverent, almost impatient attitude towards fashion, clothes, the same as when she was a very little girl.

Damon had heard boys' comments about fast, tomboyish but stunning Giulia, and had listened to even her best girlfriend's jealous remarks about how she could look "amazing in anything", and found it highly amusing to make Giulia blush when he told her what her friends had said while he had spied on them.

All she ever got from him telling her these things was that he was a voyeur. Guilty, Damon acknowledged, but it was fun to see Giulia from other people's perspective—from the perspective of humans in her life, who could either lift her up or crush her, and, for everything, her tomboyish childhood, her irreverent approach to fashion, her quiet endurance through living without a mother, her strength to live with vampires without being afraid, she was a sensitive girl. She reminded Damon a lot of himself before he had turned, though she was absolutely her own person.

And in her group of four girlfriends, all with their own distinct personalities, she was the incredibly mellow, strong one who caught people out on being unkind, and had a very long fuse that ended in an incredible display of temper if something got her riled enough. He guessed she had to have unshakable nerves to live with lethal vampires for relatives, but even he would be driven to homicide if he had to go through the cattiness of high-school as a teenaged girl. Even when her friends and enemies did and said their worst, Giulia's mellowness kept her from doing damage Damon knew she could do.

Chasing Stefan with an axe when she was three was an example of this. And, yes, Damon had coaxed her to try and get even for Daffodil and Rumball's deaths (these were the two cute baby-bunnies Giulia had absolutely adored when she was three, and which Stefan had brunched on) but the axe hadn't been his idea.

Giulia was level-headed and very kind, an uncanny choice of friend for Damon, but for the first time since he himself had been human, Giulia had helped him to flip that humanity switch so that he cared again. At least about her. She had written that he was her pal; Giulia was his one solace.

A hundred and forty-five years of waiting, only in the last two decades had he started to care. Because Salvatore history had repeated itself; a child had been left without its mother. And Giulia loved him. The most uncaring, hedonistic vampire; she loved him. It was a pure, unselfish love that had nothing to do with gain or manipulation, and Damon honoured that devotion by reciprocating her respect.

And it was nice to have one person in the entire world who didn't think he was an abomination. She kept his secret, that he could be incredibly sweet when he thought people deserved his affection, and he enjoyed being the nefarious brother without anyone knowing he doted on her. Stefan had always believed he manipulated Giulia; but Damon knew Giulia had been wearing vervain since she was a little girl.

He had given it to her.

Looking elated to see him but flustered over the sight of her diary in his hand, Giulia grinned warmly as she strode to him; opening his arms languidly he hugged her, smiling to himself as he cradled her head, gave her a little squeeze, and caught the smell of warm, rich blood mixed with the clean, pretty scent of her hair.

"Hello, beautiful."

"Hi," Giulia beamed as he released her from their hug, sliding an arm languidly around her shoulders as she hooked an arm around his waist. "How long have you been home?"

"Got back last night," Damon smiled. "You didn't hear me and Stef playing Charades out on the driveway?"

"I must've passed out," Giulia said.

"Probably; I could smell the spilt beer on you when I came to check on you," Damon smirked, and Giulia rolled her eyes subtly. "Long night?"

"Cut short; I assume that was you," Giulia said softly, giving him a disapproving look.

"She was screwing your boyfriend, I figured the least she deserved was sixty-percent blood-loss," Damon said idly, sipping his coffee. Giulia gave him another look, popping two Eggo waffles into the toaster, and Damon chuckled as she reached for her diary, arching an eyebrow at him reprovingly as she tucked the turquoise-leather book into her bag.

"I didn't tell you about Tyler so you could go around town nibbling on anybody who wronged me," she said disapprovingly.

Damon chuckled, repeating, "Nibbling… Why not?"

"Because it's immoral," Giulia said, glancing up at Damon, who smirked. "You don't need to feast on my friends when there are blood-banks. I thought you didn't like drug-users, anyway."

"I'll take what I can get," Damon said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Especially if it'll stir up terror among drunken high-school students."

"Party-pooper."

"Ouch!" he raised a hand to his heart, pouting. "So, I thought I made it clear you weren't to tell anybody I was coming back to town."

"I didn't tell anybody."

"You wrote it in your diary."

"Yeah, but the difference between you and everybody else I know is that they actually respect boundaries."

"Fair point. I just wanted to read all the nasty-not-nice things you wrote about Uncle Stefan now that he's back, anyway." Giulia sighed, her lips twitching thoughtfully in a habit way she had, and Damon watched her. "What's the matter?" he asked cajolingly, smiling. "Don't like Uncle Stefan the bunny-butcher being home?"

Giulia didn't answer for a moment, squeezing syrup onto the waffles.

"I-I just don't want him to rip anyone," she murmured, glancing up at Damon with eyes uncannily like his own, though hers were warm, honest. Kind of demure, intelligent. Definitely not vindictive, manipulative and cruel, as many people saw Damon.

"Uh-huh… So I guess I'm not the only one who reads other people's diaries," Damon smirked, watching Giulia's expression; she was genuinely worried that Stefan would relapse onto human blood and start leaving a trail of body-parts across Mystic Falls.

"Well, I had to pick up the habit from someone," Giulia said, giving Damon a look that made him chuckle; she passed him the plate of syrupy waffles and popped two more into the toaster; smiling to himself that she had made up a plate for him before helping herself, Damon sat at the island with a knife and fork.

"And as for Uncle Stefan," Damon smirked, "I doubt you have anything to worry about. He wants to live his life as a high-school student." Giulia caught his eye, and they both smirked, then laughed; she sat down beside him at the island, and Damon grinned to himself. The running joke was that, of course, Stefan was technically dead and had been for a hundred and forty-five years. "Okay, how about this, we make a deal. The first sign that Stefan's fallen off the wagon, we tie him up and throw him in the cellar." Giulia gave him a look. "No?"

"He's your brother," Giulia said quietly, her expression gentle. "You know you couldn't keep him locked up very long." Damon sighed. He had made it his afterlife's work to make Stefan's existence a misery; he did that enough to himself now, on his bunny-diet, that it had taken half the fun out of it for Damon, and despite everything, he had promised an eternity of misery; not death.

No matter how they felt about each other, he couldn't kill Stefan, even if other people paid for that inability with their lives. Joseph, for one. Before Giulia had been born, he would come back to Mystic Falls for a visit, check the lawn had been mowed, wreak havoc, and leave after a few bodies had been buried. He had only ever killed one human in his own family; Joseph, decades ago. That was old history and Zach knew well enough from the fate of his grandfather not to piss Damon off; he hadn't cared for a long time, and the 50s had been the heart of his most hedonistic era, and after it he had started to calm down, to start planning. The grief and guilt of his first few decades had morphed into revelry and delight in his abilities, the loneliness and heartsickness staved off by blood and alcohol.

The 80s had been a blur, one he had heartily enjoyed; the 90s had brought the birth of little Giuliette, and for the first time in a hundred and forty-five years, Damon had enjoyed the sheer pleasure of feeling human again. He had lived to spend time with Giuliette—Giulia, as she later became known due to her earthy, natural personality, not at all girly. Thanks to an early understanding of the connotations of the name 'Juliet', Damon teaching her to read by an antique Shakespeare compendium, Giulia had rejected the utterly feminine name Giuliette, though to Damon she was and always would be his "little dumpling", something that made her blush with embarrassment to this day.

Giulia had brought back some of his humanity; the only other aspect he had retained of it was his inability to murder his own brother.

"So. Tell me. How's school?" Damon asked. He believed America had become less-intelligent since he had been educated; but he liked to keep up with Giulia's life. Because she was alive; she grew. Her personality evolved every time he saw her, her intelligence grew, but he still waited for the day when she would come out of her shell, as it were.

"Well, we've only been back a few days," Giulia said softly, with a gentle sigh as she squeezed syrup onto her waffles.

"Man, it must be tough. Seeing him every day, watching them together," Damon said, eating his breakfast, "wondering whether he even remembered you while she was riding him—"

Giulia shot him a look, and he grimaced as he fell silent; such was the power of her glower that he shut up. She was really getting good at the blister-the-paint-from-a-barn-door glare.

"I'm serious, though. What's up? I feel like we haven't talked in a while," he continued, popping a cutting of waffle into his mouth. Giulia glanced at Damon, her eyes sad.

"Nothing's up," she said softly.

"Yeah, I guess your social calendar took a dive after you dumped the syphilitic philanderer," Damon nodded. Giulia shrugged slightly.

"Things should pick up soon. The beginning of the semester is always dull," she said, sighing softly. "This year marks the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Mystic Falls' founding, so we've got a month's worth of celebrations to look forward to. But you know that…already…"

"I do," Damon smirked, licking syrup off his thumb. "I cannot tell you how excited I am that it's finally here."

"Are you going to watch the comet with me?" Giulia asked, gazing earnestly at him. Damon grinned lazily.

"Now why would you want to hang out with your cantankerous old Uncle Damon instead of your jaunty cheerleader friends?" he smirked, and Giulia shot him a look, sighing. "Yeah, that's a fair point. What with you being on the make-Mystic Falls-sexy-again committee, I'm sure you've got things planned for the evening."

"There's going to be a candlelit ceremony in the town square," Giulia said, smiling subtly.

"Oh yeah? How many community-service hours do you get credit for?" Damon asked idly.

"A few," Giulia shrugged delicately.

"You still teaching the old folks how to salsa?" Damon asked, with another smirk; his little niece was a do-gooder in the community, devoting time to volunteering at the old-folks' home giving dance lessons, reading to children in the public library, tutoring at school, and that was in the free time she had in between her own personal interests, which were many and varied and, depending how pissed off with Damon or Stefan or her dad she was, sometimes violent.

With all the work and volunteering she did in Mystic Falls, Damon had noticed Giulia rarely stuck her head up to take credit for it, even when she deserved it, and if she had had anything to do with this ceremony for the comet, she would let other people take credit for it to avoid being the centre of attention.

"The foxtrot," Giulia smiled sweetly. "Once a week."

"You must be the highlight of their week," Damon smirked, winking. "So… I wanna hear all the gossip from cheer camp." He smirked and fluttered his eyelashes girlishly, and Giulia laughed, eyes twinkling. "Come on, just one little tiny panty-raid story…"

"There's nothing to say, really," Giulia said sadly, fiddling with her waffle.

"Oh, come on, we're family, bella Giulia. Catty girls in log-cabins, PJs and S'mores."

"Water-bottles concealing vodka. Sneaking over to the boys' cabins while they're at football camp."

"Exactly. Tell me all the slutty details."

"Well, camp was before Tyler…" Giulia sighed, eyeing her waffles miserably.

Damon sighed, gazing at Giulia. "Want me to kill him?"

"No," Giulia mumbled, her shoulders falling.

"Maybe I could rough him up a little bit?" Damon coaxed, earning him a smile, which was what he'd wanted.

"Or we can talk about revenge over bourbon at the Grill?" Giulia smiled shyly.

"Please limit all talk of coercing my teenaged daughter into illegal activity to when I'm not around," Zach said, giving Damon a disapproving look as he entered the kitchen, going straight for the coffee. Damon raised his eyebrows.

"Giulia, have I ever coerced you into illegal activity?"

"Nope."

"It was her idea anyway," Damon said, pouting at Giulia, who smiled. "See, Zach, I'm not a bad influence." Giulia rolled her eyes, smiling, as Zach sighed, giving him a disapproving look. "And anyway, I'll bet my dearest niece gets into enough trouble all by herself." He slung an arm around Giulia's shoulders. "Beautiful women always attract trouble. And you get more and more gorgeous every time I see you."

"You mean I look more and more like you every time you see me," Giulia beamed at him.

"Isn't that exactly what I said?" Damon chuckled, and Giulia smiled as he hugged her lazily.

"Two Damons. That's a scary thought," Stefan muttered, as he entered the kitchen.

"Well, good morning to you too, gorgeous. You cannot deny that our little dumpling Giuliette got the best end of the Salvatore gene-pool," Damon smirked, and Giulia laughed, shaking her head as she finished off her waffles. Damon knew Giulia loved it when he was home; he always got her to be more outgoing, adventurous, brave; he liked it when she lived, and she hated disappointing him.

"Morning, Zach," Stefan said to Zach, who nodded, eyeing his two vampiric great-uncles, his expression becoming anxious as his gaze settled on Giulia, piling plates into the dishwasher. Zach always worried about Giulia whenever Damon and Stefan were home; nature of the beast with vampires for relatives, but Zach didn't understand; Damon would never hurt Giulia. She was the closet link he had to what little humanity he had recovered. She brought out the best in him, even if nobody but her ever saw it.

"So, you two kiddies looking forward to a fun day of learning?" Damon smirked, as Giulia checked the contents of her bag, and Stefan produced his new backpack, full of composition notebooks and a History textbook.

"I can hardly contain my excitement," Giulia said sadly.

"Such enthusiasm!" Damon quipped. "What about you, Stef?" Stefan shot him a look, and Damon smirked, sipping his coffee. "You guys need a ride to school?"

Stefan shot him a deadly look. "What? I can't take my baby cousin and my little bro to school like a good older brother?"

"Except the fact that you're not a good older-brother," Stefan said tersely. Giulia sighed, and Damon glanced at her; she was gazing from him to Stefan, and shook her head slightly as she sipped the last of her orange-juice, tucked the glass into the dishwasher, picked up her bag and grabbed her keys from one of the pockets.

"Will I see you later?" Giulia asked him, gazing earnestly at him, and Damon grinned lazily as he offered his arm; her eyes glowed with happiness as she hugged him, and Damon kissed her cheek before letting her go; she kissed her father goodbye and Stefan shot Damon a glare before he followed her out to the driveway, where Giulia's car—a classic 1960s VW Beetle—stood under cover. The last time Damon had seen Giulia, she had been pondering whether to have the paint-job redone, and the burgundy-red did look rather faded.

"Oh, hey," he heard Stefan murmur to Giulia, "do you happen to know where the copy of Wuthering Heights is? The first-edition Ellis Bell?"

"I'm…reading it," Giulia said softly. "Why?"

"Oh. I just…talked about it with Elena last night, I wanted to give it to her," Stefan said.

"That's Damon's book," Giulia said softly, gazing at Stefan, and Damon smirked to himself as he leaned in the doorway, watching Stefan's features as he paused, before climbing into the passenger-seat beside Giulia. He heard Stefan mutter, "I want you to be careful around Damon, alright… Whatever he's here for, he means trouble, alright, he could hurt you…"

Damon heard Giulia's answering sigh, and she drove off. By the sound of it, her Beetle needed a tune-up.


A.N.: I really, really need to start writing a 3000-word essay due in on tomorrow morning, but I cannot be arsed. Never underestimate the power of sheer panic when it comes to finishing homework.