Jeremy narrowed his eyes at Damon as Damon poured the measured chemicals sloppily into the bowl between them. They were in the middle of Science, and the teacher, Mr. Saltzman, had walked out for a few minutes like he always did. Jeremy was thinking. He wanted a boyfriend, and Damon was perfect in his eyes. They'd kinda talked, and Damon didn't reject him like all the other people did. He was actually talking to him like they were friends. So, Jeremy felt obliged to ask this:
"Are you gay?" he asked out of the blue.
Damon frowned and very slowly turned his head towards him. "What?" he said just as slowly.
Jeremy shrugged. "It's just that there's been a lot of talk going around school that you're gay. So I thought I'd get the full scoop from you," he lied, covering for himself.
Damon frowned and looked behind himself at everyone in the room. "Who says that?" he hissed.
"Everyone," he lied again. "So are you?" he asked once again.
Damon looked back to Jeremy. "No. Of course not!" he snapped.
Jeremy gave him a look that said 'Are you sure about that?' "Are you sure about that?"
"I'm not gay!" Damon insisted.
Jeremy held his hands up in surrender. "Alright. I believe you." They stared at one another for a few second, then relaxed and looked back to the items on the table. But then Jeremy slowly tilted sideways so it looked like he was muttering something secret to Damon, and he said in a very low, serious tone, "Are you sure?"
"Yes!" Damon yelled, forgetting he was in class. "I'm 100% straight! No curves anywhere!" People started turning in their seats to look at what the fuss was about. "I only date females. FEmales!" He looked to everyone frantically. "FFEEEEE!" he hissed at them all.
"Dude! Calm down!" Jeremy instructed, getting a little frightened. Damon sat back down in his seat, looking at Jeremy with angered eyes.
"Why? They need to know I'm not gay!" he informed him.
"Yeah, well, freaking out like that has not only confirmed that you're gay, but also given them the idea that you have mental problems," Jeremy pointed out. He patted Damon on the back of his shoulder and gave him a 'sorry' look. "Sorry, bud."
Damon stared at him in questioned, realizing that Jeremy was completely right. Damon closed his eyes in regret and dropped his head into his hands. "Great…"
•How We Roll•
"God, they're so hot!" Elena whined as she spied on the two brothers and their 'gang' as they tossed papers at one another. Some cracked huge grins while others laughed. Elena was mainly watching the eldest brother, Damon, as he threw his head back, laughing, and almost tell off of the picnic table they were sitting around.
"Yes, but that doesn't change anything," Bonnie replied to Elena. Elena and Bonnie were sitting clear across the school yard, eating with some of their own 'friends.' "They're still the popular ones, and we're still the nobodies," she said, sounding like she really didn't have a problem with it.
Elena looked down at her tray of untouched food. "I want them to notice me," she complained.
"Go talk to them," Anna said. Oh, she was sitting with Bonnie and Elena, by the way.
Both Bonnie and Elena snapped their heads to look at Anna. "Are you crazy?" Bonnie inquired.
"What?" Anna asked.
"You can't just go up and 'talk to them,'" Elena informed her like it was obvious. "That would be like suicide!"
"That's the only way you're ever going to find out if they're interested in you," she said.
"Easy for you to say. No one likes you," Bonnie retorted.
Anna glared at her and straightened her back out. It was true, no one liked Anna. She was your typical nerd. Knitted vest over a buttoned up shirt, her hair in a bun, and a skirt that didn't dare come up above the knee. "Ok, but just because no one likes me doesn't mean I don't know how this works," she defended herself, not offended about what Bonnie said because she'd heard it all before. "I've seen this. You fall for a guy, and then you don't talk to him, and then you're heart broken when he doesn't even know your name. So just talk to him and make yourself known!" she preached.
"Then you go talk to them. Prove that theory to us," Elena challenged.
Anna took a deep breath and stood up from the table they were sitting at. She smoothed out her skirt and started walking away, right towards the guys' table.
Bonnie and Elena watched in boredom. They knew how this would end: Anna gets made fun of and she comes back over there (right towards them so the guys see that they're with her), and she gets mad because they were right.
But that wasn't what happened. As Anna approached, Elena saw one of the guys look over at her and smile. Not a mean smile, like he was about to attack her, but a smile that looked like he was pleased to see a girl approaching them. Anna stopped and began talking, and all the guys looked at her. Just a couple got bored after a second and went back to talking, but the majority of them watched her as she spoke. Anna held her hand out and Elena's mouth fell open in a nasty surprise as two of the guys reached out at the same time to shake it.
"What the heck?" Bonnie asked. That was impossible. They should be throwing things at her right now.
One of the ones in the back of the group asked something, and Anna nodded. But then Stefan spoke and a couple of them nodded. Damon looked at his brother with an annoyed look while Anna spoke. He looked back to Anna and smiled. Anna pointed behind her with her thumb and made to walk away, but one of the guys stopped her by taking her arm lightly. Anna turned to look at what he wanted and Bonnie scoffed as he started writing something down on a piece of paper, his number probably. But it was then Elena that made a negative noise as Stefan also gave her a piece of paper he'd written on. Damon watched Anna with a smile on his face as she turned and finally started walking away.
"What happened?" Elena demanded before Anna was even halfway back to them.
Anna shrugged as she came close to the table. "I talked to them," she replied.
"And?" Bonnie pressed.
Anna came and sat back down at her seat. "I'm now tutoring two of them. Stefan Salvatore and that guy that's too unimportant to have a name in this story. Guy1 I think his name is."
Bonnie stared at Anna with jealousy and Elena mentally kicked herself.
"And the other Salvatore called me cute," Anna mumbled to herself, not meaning to rub it in their faces, but just happy about being able to say that sentence without lying.
Elena pursed her lips and glared at Anna as she went back to her book.
•How We Roll•
All of the guys laughed at Stefan. They were all surrounding a picnic table in the schoolyard during lunch. Damon and Stefan were sitting across from one another with random other guys just sitting around and a few standing behind them. Damon couldn't help the cackles that came out of his mouth. He bit the pen he was holding and leaned over the table to talk to his brother.
"Ok," he laughed, getting everyone to be silent for a few seconds. "Let me get this straight. You're just going to 'casually' bump into her and throw her books across the yard–" a lot of the guys started laughing quietly, biting their lips to keep it kinda quiet "–and then apologize and walk with her to pick them up. And that will somehow…like…what exactly?" he giggled. He bit the pen to contain the chuckles.
Stefan licked the front of his teeth while trying not to smile at his friends. You know when you're being serious, but your friends won't and you can't help but smile at them. Yeah, that's what he was trying not to do. "That will allow me to talk to her."
Macho football player leaned over Stefan's shoulder. "So like a twenty second date, right?" he smiled in fake enthusiasm.
Stefan shook his head and pulled his lips together, keeping from smiling. He flicked the French fry he had been holding onto his plate. "Laugh if you want," he said, leaning back from the table. "But twenty seconds is all I need."
Guy1 frowned and held his hands open in a confused way. He moved the sandwich to the side of his mouth to talk. "To what? Tell her she looks especially Gothy today?" The other guys laughed and started giving him random (ridiculous) pickup lines for him.
"You know all that black makeup really brings out your fake, black eyes."
"My life was happy and bubbly until I met you, babe."
"Must have been a relief when you finally got back from hell."
The guys were laughing and ranting on with better lines for Stefan until one of them had the 'brilliant' idea of – "Or you could always sing to her!" And that broke them into even more fits of laughter and high-fiving for awesome lyric changes.
"That's what makes you black-heart-ed!"
"Oh! Dead-ly Caaroline!"
"If I was your boyfriend I'd never have fun."
"Everybody's got a dark side…Except for you…You've got two!"
"If you're pissed off and you know it, clap your hands!" To which everyone clapped along in glee and humor.
"Hey I just met you, and you're kinda freaky, but here's my number, don't kill me, maybe! "
"She wants to kill me – Whoa! She wants to beat me – Whoa! She'll never like me – Whoa! Whoa! –Oh-oh!" And then everyone joined in with that one guy, and they all seemed to know the words. "Don't trust a Goth! Never trust a Goth! Don't trust a Goth – Goths fascinate Stefan!"
Stefan punched a few of them that were next to him as he laughed along with them. But then Damon suddenly stopped everyone. "Shhh!" he hissed, leaning on the table and watching Stefan closely. Everyone seemed to lean in also, waiting to hear what Damon said. Everything was silent, it seemed even the school had shut up.
Damon stared at Stefan, building up the tension. Then a smile split his face and his head bobbed to the beat as he sang, "I'm Gothic and I know it!"
Immediately everyone started singing the background music. "Bow-na-now-now. Down-da-dow-down!"
Elijah, Klaus, and Kol watched from inside their car. Elijah had an eyebrow raised, trying to mentally figure out what could possibly be going on in that group of people.
Klaus was staring at them like they were lunatics. "What the hell is going on?"
Kol, on the other hand, was in the back seat, head bobbing to the noises the flock of guys were making. They were so loud that they were clearly audible from inside the box of a car. "Yeah! This is my kinda people!" he exclaimed, getting pumped.
Klaus inhaled slowly. "No surprise there."
Elijah, Kol, and Klaus exited their Mustang (because that is the only fancy car I can think of right now…) and looked around at all their new classmates walking around the school grounds, ignoring the singing group of jocks. Kol looked around with a giant smile on his face. "The girls are hot!" he exclaimed.
Elijah frowned and turned to look at Kol. "What are you talking about? Half of the girls I've just now looked at had a terrible case of acne," he contemplated.
Kol gave his brother a mock hurt look. "So judgmental," he accused. "You telling me you've never had a bad acne day?"
"Yes, I have. But I did not have a backup like all women do. These girls clearly refuse to do anything about their face problems when they have a perfectly good tool to fix it all; giving me the impression they don't really care about their appearance at all."
Kol frowned. "They have a tool that fixes that kind of stuff?" he asked, like he had never heard anything like that before.
Klaus made a kind of gurgling noise of annoyance. "It's called makeup, Kol," he said snappily.
"Oh! Duh," he said, realizing he hadn't caught onto that simple riddle. But in the middle of his realization, his head snapped to Klaus and his face went from 'Ohhhh' to 'Hey!' "Is that my jacket?" he demanded.
Klaus looked down at Kol's leather jacket he had purposely put on that morning. "Oh, would you look at that," he said as if he hadn't noticed. "I suppose it is," he guessed while he looked back up to Kol, not moving to take the jacket off at all.
Kol held his hand out, palm up, and flicked his fingers towards himself. "Give," he instructed.
Klaus smirked as he pulled off the jacket, revealing his toned muscles to all the girls that had been staring at the three new hotties. Handing the jacket over, Klaus opened the car door with his other hand. Kol took his jacket with a disapproving look at his brother. Klaus, without looking, pulled out his jean jacket and pulled it on as he looked around at all the stalker girls.
"Suppose you're going to tell me you've got my underwear on as well," Kol sneered under his breath.
Klaus smirked, shut the car door, and nodded his head to the side. "Actually…"
Kol was about to respond, but Elijah stopped the two from rambling on. "Brothers," was all he said, and they stopped their bickering right there.
Kol glared at Klaus, but then his attention was taken to a couple of people that were strolling along a sidewalk slowly, talking and being absolutely carefree. "Oh mi God," Kol muttered in amazement.
Klaus and Elijah both frowned at Kol. "What is it?" asked Elijah.
Kol stared open-mouthed at the two Goths as they rounded the corner and headed towards the middle of the parking lot. "That's our brother," Kol said in alarm.
"Your imaginary friend?" Klaus checked, reminding that the 'brother' was fake.
Kol didn't look back to Elijah or Klaus, he just stared at the tall, Goth boy. "That is him!" he insisted. "The one dressed in black next to that red car. That is him in solid form."
Elijah rolled his eyes and didn't take time to look at what his brother was talking about. Klaus, however, was just a bit curious. He turned and saw immediately what Kol was talking about. Standing next to a red Ford was two teens that were decked out in black clothing, a girl and a boy. Despite the fact that Klaus was supposed to be looking for his so called 'brother,' he couldn't help but stare, instead, at the beautiful blonde woman opening the passenger's door. Her hair was a gorgeous gold and the ends of her hair were burnt black. She was rambling on about something, using her hands to emphasize, while the tall boy listened to every word.
The jocks were laughing and making as much noise as an entire school auditorium. But at almost the exact same moment, five of them, including Damon, looked up to see Caroline next to a truck. They all five stopped singing immediately and got wide-eyed as they began yelling and pointing at her.
"Stefan!"
"It's the Goth!"
All of them looked up and started rambling on and on for Stefan to chase her as Stefan panicked when he saw she was about to leave. They all yelled at him to move and three of them pulled him out of the table as he stumbled out of his seat. He got to his feet as soon as possible and ran towards Caroline.
When Finn finally spoke, he and Caroline climbed into the car, out of Klaus' and Stefan's view.
"I can't believe it. Why isn't he over here talking to me?" Kol went on, ignoring the damsel completely.
Klaus turned back to Kol. "Look, they're leaving now, so shut up."
Kol frowned at his brother, then turned to Elijah, but Elijah was no longer there. "Where did 'Lijah go?"
Klaus looked around for his older brother and spotted him walking towards the school. Klaus pointed and Kol followed his finger. "Ah!" Kol exclaimed, jogging to catch up. Klaus, on the other hand, scoped out the school once more before following. Nope, no other girl struck his fancy as the blonde had. Looks like he had a goal in life after all: get the girl.
Stefan ran after the truck as it pulled away from the school drive. The rest of the guys were laughing at him. Some gave cat calls and some gave him "encouraging" words. "Run, lover boy, run!" macho guy yelled.
Stefan ran out of breath and slowed down, coming to a stop as he watched the car disappear down the road. "Dammit," he mumbled.
Everyone in his group, including his brother, was laughing and asking him how the "date" went; but Stefan ignored it all as he cursed himself for running too slow. Someone came up beside Stefan and looked after the car with him. "Let me guess," the person said in an English accent. "You wanted to speak with a girl that can't stand you, but she just took off and now you have to spend over twelve miserable hours waiting to see her again tomorrow?"
Stefan frowned and looked sideways at the stranger. He had short brown hair that kind of stuck up in the front. He wore a leather jacket – which Stefan approved of – and shades were perched up on his head, looking like an oversized headband. Stefan didn't have to say anything to get his remark across to the stranger. Kol just replied anyway. "Been there, done that."
Even though the guy was a total stranger, Stefan liked him. Something about him (maybe the fact that he knew what Stefan was going through, had the same cool leather jacket as Stefan, looked like a jock, and could attract tons of attention from girls with his accent) made Stefan immediately accept him. Stefan held his hand out as he continued to frown at the stranger. "Stefan Salvatore," he introduced.
Kol took his hand with a smirk. "Kol…" They stared at one another as their hands slightly bounced up and down, Stefan waiting for the rest of the name. Kol nodded his head as he looked forward again and took his hand back. "Just Kol," he muttered, still smirking.
"Is that like 'K,'" he said just beginning sound of the name, "and your last name's 'Ol?'" he asked, messing with the name. Kol frowned at him like he was an idiot. Stefan's eyebrows rose. "No?" They dropped. "Ok," he said as he turned his head back to the road. "Well, K," he said again, just the first sound. "You seem cool enough. Wanna be a jock?"
Kol frowned, thinking. "Do I have to be a jock?" he asked.
"No, you could just be a popular guy–"
"I wanna be a popular guy," Kol affirmed, bobbing his head up and down in approval like a little kid deciding on which ice cream flavor they wanted.
"Cool." Stefan, without looking, reached sideways and took Kol's hand. He turned them around and headed back to the group of guys that had finally shut up and were just talking now. "Guys," Stefan got their attention. "This is K," he introduced, lifting their intertwined hands.
"Ol," Kol added quickly. "Kol." Kol smiled proudly. "Hi," he greeted. But right after, he seemed to realize that Stefan had his hand. "What the hell is this?" he mumbled, lifting his hand upward like a ballerina, pulling it free of Stefan's hand. He brought his hand back down gracefully, his fingers 'twinkling' back and forth and his palm facing the boys he had just been introduced to. Damon had one eyebrow frowned and stared at Kol like he was some freak job.
None of the guys, for that matter, seemed to take any sort of liking to Kol as Stefan did; they all merely stared at him. "I'm English," Kol stated in his accent. No reaction earned from the guys. Kol nodded, thinking of something else. "I play guitar," he said randomly. Instead of no reaction, almost all of the guys eased their stared and made slightly approving faces, like they were now debating. Kol pursed his lips, thinking for other reasons for them to like him. "Chicks dig me?" he tried. Almost immediately all of the guys started talking and moving closer to him.
"Oh mi God, thank you!"
"About damn time."
"Put it right there."
"Teach me your ways, oh master."
"Thank God."
"Man, you are now my B.F.F."
"These girls are ridiculous!"
Kol was shaking hands in all directions as the guys started smothering him. He smiled and soaked up the attention. "Sweeet," he whispered in a low voice.
•How We Roll•
*Five minutes previous*
"I just don't know what to do now, Finn," Caroline concluded, resting her arm on the door and staring out the windshield in a tired gaze.
"Well, you've done more than anyone else would have," he encouraged as he pulled out of the school to head for the woods. It was Thursday, and they did this every week. They ditched school during lunch and left to just hang out. The forest was mainly where they went, just because it was isolated from the rest of the world. "I'm not kidding in any way. I would have fallen apart when my father left," he admitted. "You've done an amazing job, Caroline."
Caroline was telling him about the family issues. Her family was truly screwed up. Her dad left about two years ago (that's when she first became Goth), and her mother had become basically a walking wasteland. She didn't care about her appearance, safety, or health. And her caring for Caroline had died a year ago. Caroline had basically been running everything. She took up three jobs over the summer, one during the school year, and got paid from the school to be half-time janitor. She bought the food in the house, paid the bills, managed the money, and did everything she could to not lose the house. And just to make it worse, her mother treated her like Cinderella – before she wore the painful shoes. Yeah, sad story for a comedy; sorry for bursting your bubble.
"Yeah, but it doesn't seem like it…" Caroline mumbled. She never gave herself credit, and it upset Finn. She was doing more than most adults did their entire lives, but she didn't seem to think so.
"Listen, let's just…forget about the world for the rest of the day, all right?" he said softly, turning onto a gravel road.
Caroline nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, let's do that." She sat up in her seat and pushed back all of her problems from her life. Finn was her escape from this world, that's why she intended to be best friends with him for as long as she lived.
•How We Roll•
"So like, what kind of chicks can you get?" a black guy asked Kol. They had chilled back down at their table, just relaxing and testing out Kol.
Kol shrugged. "I can get a lot of girls."
"How about nerds?" Damon asked, staring off at a table of Nobody Chicks (Elena, Bonnie, Anna, other random girls).
Kol thought about it for a second. "I've never gone for it, but it can't be all that different."
Macho guy patted his shoulder. "Alright then, you're on. That table over there," he said, pointing to where Damon was staring. "Go get a number."
Kol gave a thoughtful face. "Easy," he established, standing up and strutting over. He stopped in front of the table and looked at all the eligible bachelorettes. He liked the dark skinned one with the black hair, but she wasn't showing any attention to him. "Hello ladies," he greeted in a sexy, slurred voice.
Four of the five people looked up to him. Elena, Anna, Nerd1, and Trevor. Yeah, Trevor, Rose's brother, he was a nobody that preferred to sit with the calm, mellow girls for lunch, but even after a year of doing so, he still didn't know any of their names. Bonnie kept her head down, concentrating on carving her apple with a plastic fork. Elena showed some slight interest in Kol, mainly because he was the new found jock and could possibly get her connections. Anna didn't seem to care as she went back to her book, Trevor went back to his food when he saw it was another stuck up douche, and Nerd1 smiled at Kol.
Kol stared at Bonnie as he leaned his elbow on the table. "So, here's the thing. I'm new to this school, and I would love it if one of you lovely ladies could take some time off of your busy schedules just to show me around? Help me get a feel for it all?"
Bonnie inhaled deeply, continuing to look down at her apple. "You're in the school yard; cafeteria is right inside the double doors behind me. Down the hall from there – first door on your left – you'll find the music room, second door is the science. All the room names are carved on the top of their door frame, shouldn't be too hard to figure out. And there's maps stapled onto all the bulletin boards you pass." She finally stopped to take a breath. "Have fun." By now her apple had a face carved into it and she was working on evil looking hands on the sides.
Kol immediately lost his interest in her. She was bitchy – something he didn't like when he didn't even know the girl's name. "I'm sorry, you skipped the auditorium," he sneered back at her in a sour tone.
Bonnie became irritated and folded her hands over the apple on her lap. She put on a fake smirk and looked up at him for the first time. "The auditorium is downstairs," she said. Anna looked up from her interesting book to frown at her. "The stairs leading down can be found in the principal's office."
"What kind of screwed up school leads to the gym through the principal's office?" he questioned disgusted, like he was insulting her instead of the school.
"The only other way down there is if you have a key; and only janitors have those." She started standing up from the table. "Now, if you don't mind, keep your pompous ass away from me," she said with a smile as she turned and walked off.
Anna shook her head in slight amusement. "She really doesn't like you," she said to the side.
Kol tore his eyes away from Bonnie's descending figure and looked back at Elena. "Now, how about that tour?" he said, switching back to his sexy tone.
Elena bit her lip as she grabbed a pen and looked for something to write on. The only paper was the ones in Anna's book. Elena quickly reached over and tore the page Anna was reading from the binding. "Hey!" Anna shrieked. Elena quickly scribbled down her number and handed the page of the book to him with a blush creeping up to her face. Kol smirked at her as he took it and slowly walked away, looking back to wink at her.
"Easy," he mumbled to himself as he walked back to the challengers.
Anna pursed her lips at Elena. She snapped her book shut and stood up from the table. "You owe me…" she opened the book to the new empty place, "…page 136 of this year's math text book." And with that she huffed off, leaving Elena frowning after her.
•How We Roll•
