Chapter Four: Stupor

As all the people who had formerly occupied the living-room had fled to the other parts of the house, but mostly into the dining room, it wasn't that surprising that all hell broke loose thereafter.

Several girls Elijah didn't know announced that they needed more alcohol to sooth their poor nerves, which was followed by thuds and clinks as several bottles of strong liquor were set on the dining table, their game of beer pong seemingly forgotten.

People gathered closer to mix drinks for themselves, leaving Kol, Stefan, Damon and himself standing on the opposite ends of the table, staring dumbly at each other.

Damon picked up one of the last remaining beer cups and took a generous swig from it. "So we can conclude that you lost by default," he said gloatingly, his mouth split into an ear-to-ear smile.

"What!" Kol said disbelievingly. "Even if we don't count the distraction that made me miss, the game was still ruined by these…" he explained frantically, disdain heavy in his voice as he motioned the mass of teenagers around them "…people."

"No no no," said Stefan shaking his head with a thinly veiled smirk on his face and Damon added smugly: "You lost, buddy, face it. It's time to pay up."

"That only means that we have to settle the bet in another way," Kol stated simply, "Or are you afraid you'll get beaten in a fair game?"

"The bet?" Elijah asked suspiciously while Damon and Stefan turned to each other to discuss Kol's proposal by themselves, arms crossed and faces ridiculously serious.

"Yeah, I guess it might have slipped my mind," his brother said innocently, "but, yes, we might have made a little bit of a wager, you know, to make things more interesting."

"What wager?" Elijah asked a little too quickly.

Kol smirked and winked at him, amusement shining in his eyes: "You'll find out soon enough… that is when we defeat the Salvatore brothers, then I'll be glad to tell you."

"Kol…" he warned. He really wasn't fond of surprises.

"Would it inspire you to be more competitive if I told you the losers have to run a circle around the house, naked?" he said, pouting his lips mockingly.

Elijah couldn't stop his eyebrows from shooting skyward, but he didn't say anything. It was just a jape to get a rise out of him. Or that's what he hoped for anyway because he surely wasn't going to do anything like that.

As soon as they turned back towards the Salvatore's, their opponents straightened up, ending their secret meeting. "We have no reason to accept," Stefan said sharply, enjoying the situation by the look of it. "Even if the interruption wasn't anyone's fault, still we were in a winning position when the game was cancelled."

"The game wasn't cancelled," Elijah argued, suddenly much more interested in the outcome of their little dispute. "We demand a rematch."

"I say we settle it in a good old-fashioned fist fight instead," Kol growled, fed up with the Salvatore's reluctance. He took a few quick steps around the table, passing the unheeding high schoolers slurping their drinks, and shoved Stefan hard enough to make him fall on his back. And thankfully not hard enough to tear down a wall, Elijah thought.

At once all the eyes in the room turned to the two on them. Damon was instantly at his brothers side, yelling: "Whoa, what the hell?" and ready to take on Kol, though that would have been a colossal mistake.

Elijah sensed a disaster about to happen and strode forward to stand beside his brother, his hands spread out defensively as he figured how to defuse the situation. "Let's not act foolishly now," he said patronizingly, earning a condemning glare from Kol who was obviously in favor of beating the Salvatore brothers to a pulp.

Damon, ever the opportunist, had meanwhile apparently abandoned any prudence and took advantage of their momentary distraction by punching Kol right in the face, sending him flying into a cluster of people, his actions evoking a sea of groans and complains.

Kol was promptly back on his feet, the two pairs of brothers facing each other with an atmosphere so tense around them, you could slice it with a knife. Stefan's face was clouded by anger, Damon was rubbing his fist with a confident, an almost challenging sneer, the fool, and Kol was seething, his eyes black as coal.

Elijah just felt once again the desire to simply crawl into his bed, this time with a whole bottle of whiskey and drink himself into the peaceful world of sleep where even the loudest party couldn't disrupt his rest. Maybe he would have even followed through with his plan, had he not been afraid that the house would be replaced by a smoking crater by the morning.

"Ready for a real beatdown?" Kol drawled lazily, but before anyone could answer, Rebekah was back with a colorful cocktail in her hand and an irritated expression on her face.

"Stop, you idiots!" she demanded coldly. "Can't you settle your petty quarrel in some other way?" She lowered her voice, probably drunk enough not to realize everyone would hear her anyway: "You better not ruin it for me."

Kol raised an eyebrow at her speech and Damon burst into laughter.

"Oh, tell them Elijah," she went on, ignoring the others, "you're the only one with a brain out of you four. Or do I have to call Nik?"

"She's right," Elijah confirmed coolly.

"That must be a first, then," Kol murmured, giving him a knowing smirk.

"And somebody, please, fix the music!" Rebekah added as she turned to leave, though Elijah could have sworn he heard her muttering "What idiots" under her breath.

"Alright," Kol shrugged nonchalantly as if they hadn't been about to tear each other apart a second ago. He was nothing if not adaptable, his anger dissolving as quickly as it emerged. Still somewhere between him and the Salvatore's remained the unsaid 'later'. "I have just the challenge we need in mind," he continued merrily.

Kol turned on his charm as he led the forces to set up another game. When Damon and Stefan insisted on having a say in the matter in which their long-overdue challenge was going to be settled, he just smiled sweetly and said that Damon should like it.

Soon the dining table was cleaned from all excessive stuff and twenty shot glasses were placed on each end. Kol dubbed the new game as "beer pong for the heavy drinker" or "the strong pong".

He left the room for a moment in search of something and Elijah found himself wondering why and, moreover, how he'd gotten himself into this, but it was clearly too late to back out now.

When his brother got back he had a huge bottle of vodka in one hand and a dice in the other as he rushed to the table to fill the shot glasses.

"Well this should make it a little more interesting," Damon said, intrigued and delighted since he was a veteran drinker after all.

Elijah suspected nothing good would come out of it. He was already groggy from all the alcohol he'd consumed, he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about getting blind drunk.

Stefan, too, looked to be a bit worried, but didn't say anything, just observing the setting from the corner of the room, his hands crossed over his chest.

Just before the game could start another loud noise sounded from the living-room as the music was established. "Finally!" Rebakah called up heavenward, turning around after giving them a last condemning glare, and headed out of the room, followed by a bunch of other people. Still most stayed to see how things were going to turn out in the dining room.

Once more they tossed a coin to see which team would start and as the luck would have it, this time it was them.

Getting a small dice into a shot glass turned out to be much more difficult than directing a ping pong ball into a beer cup, especially since you couldn't bounce it off the table so only a direct shot was possible.

That was shortly proven by Kol who missed his first throw, dragging a hearty laugh out of Stefan even. But the Salvatore's smug satisfaction was short lived when Damon couldn't deliver his shot as well.

After several rounds of failures on both sides, Stefan finally managed to fly the dice straight into one of the shot glasses and Elijah found himself somewhat eager to drain the container. It was impossible to stay sober in this company, though he had to admit – this was interesting. It was definitely 'a challenge', as stupid as it might have been.

As the game proceeded dices started to land on target more often and that may have been a good or a bad thing, he really couldn't tell anymore…

Elijah blinked.

But this couldn't be right… how could this be?

The last thing he remembered was playing that game with Kol and the Salvatore's and the shot glasses, but it wasn't the dining room that surrounded him.

"…and then he gave me his blood and cured me! I mean come on!" somebody's high-pitched voice rang in his ears. "Who would make somebody's boyfriend bite them on their birthday and leave them dying only to swoop in in the last possible moment to save them!"

This really just couldn't be right, Elijah thought again, taking in the scene that unfolded around him. He was sitting on the steps in front of the mansion, he realized. But it was still dark outside, which was a good thing since that meant that not much time could have passed.

There were still people everywhere, gathered into smaller groups as they were smoking and laughing, he could hear fragments of their jokes.

"…after inviting me to the ball, giving me that dress…" the familiar voice continued, though somewhat slurred from, no doubt, copious amounts of liquor.

Elijah wondered vaguely whether his voice would sound like that if he'd open his mouth. After all he had had large quantities of booze, too. That was why he was probably in his current state of mind which was completely disconcerted, lost and unable to determine how he got there.

But the unrelenting voice kept going on. "…so I told him to stop it! Gosh, I told him some pretty horrible things… but still he wouldn't give up!" She sounded angry, but her voice was very lively. It seemed to make Elijah more lucid just by listening to it, even though he couldn't bring himself to concentrate enough to understand what she was ranting about. "…and then he gave me that drawing," suddenly her tone softened a little, "he sure can draw."

He wanted to tell her she was drunk and that she should go home, but his mouth refused to cooperate. His whole body felt tired and limp, legs spread loosely on the flagstones and hands gripping the edge of the steps so he wouldn't fall over. He hadn't been that drunk for centuries.

"So," he could feel her hand resting on his shoulder to give it a small pat before it retreated, "will you please talk to him?"

Elijah squinted to see the girl's face. Blond hair, blue eyes… she was definitely familiar. He cleared his throat before speaking, but still managed to sound hoarse. "Talk to whom?"

She laughed at that, nudging his arm amicably. She thought he was joking. Elijah found that amusing. "Just tell me you'll talk to Klaus and I'll leave you alone, promise!" she said in that chipper voice of hers. "I mean I'm with Tyler! He needs to understand that."

Finally Elijah was able to connect the face with the name. It was the baby vampire. Caroline. He frowned. When had they become… friends? It sounded unnatural somehow.

"It was nice talking to you, Elijah," she then said decisively, suddenly jumping up. She gave him a last flashing smile and trotted back inside. This had been certainly… strange. Especially since he had barely done any talking.

"Hey man," another voice sounded from above him. He looked up to see Jeremy coming to a halt next to him. "You don't look so good…"

Elijah blinked his eyes confusedly. His head was spinning and nothing seemed to make much sense.

"You wanna pick-me-up?" he said handing a smoking joint to him.

"Oh, no," he said sounding weary even to himself, "I believe I've had enough of pick-me-ups to last a century." He dove into his thoughts for a moment before he remembered something that made him sit up more stiffly. "Do you happen to know who won the beer pong?"