10 – Let the Right One In

For the first time in a long time I was actually the first one up and contemplated whether I should wait for the others to wake up or should actually be punctual for work. The creaking of floor boards made me flinch and in a whim I decided to be the better person, changed my clothes in a hurry, grabbed my guitar and was out the door in a moment.

I was still pretty early and took a walk at human speed, trying to sort out why I felt so uncomfortable around the Salvatores at the moment and decided that it was because of my date with Harper, one of the tomb vampires. I hadn't even told them that I had found out about the tomb vampires several days ago when I met Harper in the woods and I felt incredibly guilty. Must be the reason.

Biting my lip, I imagined how Damon would react when I told him about Harper and then frowned because there was no reason for me to care what he thought. It was my own decision with whom I went out or not and he hadn't shown any interest in taking Harper's place so why should I be considerate of his feelings? If he even had any feelings at the moment, he might have simply turned it all off or the simplest answer was that he didn't care about me anyway.

My head dropped down and I wasn't watching where I was going while I wallowed in self-pity and nearly ran into someone in front of the kindergarten. "Sorry." I mumbled dejectedly, walking around whatever obstacle was before me until that person took a hold of my wrist softly, causing my muscles to tense.

Harper quickly let go of me again and fidgeted a bit nervously. "Good morning, Avery. I apologize deeply for startling you but I had the urge to see you before tonight and tell you that I very much look forward to seeing you tonight." He bowed slightly and brushed his lips against my hand and I had to admit that I could get used to this gallant behavior.

"That's nice of you." I said with a timid smile, surprised about how nervous the prospect of an actual date made me. It wasn't as if I was totally inexperienced with men, especially after my time as a junkie where I had practically no inhibitions but this was something different entirely. I had never actually been out with someone, especially not someone as well mannered as Harper.

"I'll probably check up on you after work since I can't wait to see you again." He placed his hands on my forearms carefully and I was frozen on the spot as he lowered his lips toward mine. A warmth spread across my cheeks when he kissed them softly and I was sure that I could melt on the spot from his gentle touch.

He was gone when I looked up and my hand immediately flew to the place he had kissed. With flushed cheeks I stormed inside, immediately hiding in the kitchen to avoid any questions that might be asked about the stranger I had spoken to in front of the door. If they thought that it was a weird occurrence, then what was I supposed to think?

Harper was quite attractive but I suddenly felt insecure about what feelings were actually involved on either side. I was just a fellow vampire he had met in the woods that helped him escape the fights for power that most likely raged among the tomb vampires. But what was he to me? Was he my way to distract myself from my feelings for Damon or was I rather trying to escape them by giving a chance to someone good?

Chances were that I was brooding too much and this was only a minor issue, something that would pass me by without much drama hopefully. That was it! I would just let it happen without interpreting the small signs that I thought I might be seeing, which would only drive me crazy in the end.

Because I wanted to get off of work as soon as possible to see Harper again, the day trickled by so slowly that I felt that it would never end. When I finally stormed out of the place, I stopped short in front of the door because there was no one there.

Disappointment washed through me so powerfully that all my doubts disappeared for a moment because somehow I had taken a liking to the man from another time. A dark haired man stepped before me and my face lit up with a hopeful smile that was washed away when I took in the pale skin of my onlooker. "Damon." I said and disenchantment rung clear in my voice as I peered around him to see if Harper was somewhere close. Where was he?

Damon narrowed his eyes at me in suspicion but spoke lightly. "Where you expecting someone else?"

"I… I don't know. No." I said quietly, giving up the search for the person I was actually waiting for but I didn't want Damon to know about it just yet when the sadness about his absence was still fresh. He had seemed so sincere when he said he would come.

"Whatever." He said, brushing a hand through his dark, glossy hair but there was something wrong. I could tell because his stance wasn't as arrogant as it usually was and he would have never dropped a subject with which he could tease me. "Something happened." Damon said gravely, confirming my suspicions.

"What is it?" I asked anxiously when he didn't continue.

"The tomb vampires have Stefan and presumably they're…" His voice broke off oddly and I had never seen him this distressed, not even when he discovered that Katherine seemingly didn't care for him and all his efforts had been for nothing. "…torturing him." His face twisted in disgust and he couldn't meet my eyes that looked at him in honest concern. I couldn't stop caring about him since he was still one of the only people that were close to me in some strange way.

I placed my hand on his cheek timidly to turn his face into my direction but the pain in his eyes made me pull my hand back straight away but my eyes burned just as fiercely as I assured him. "I'll help you get him back, no matter what."

His brows pulled together and I wondered if he would decline my offer but then there would be no reason for him to have told me in the first place. "It seemed like you had plans for tonight…" He trailed off, gesturing around him as he obviously remembered my searching gaze.

"Well, he's not here now so I guess he has better things to do." I said, still a bit dejectedly. "And we're talking about Stefan's life and not about some date that probably would have been disastrous anyway." I grumbled, kicking away a stone on the ground.

He chuckled at my pessimism and threw an arm around my shoulders that only made me feel slightly tense as we started walking. "If he knows what's best for him, then he'll call you soon enough to apologize. Or are you the one who would have made the date a disaster?" He asked curiously, tightening his arm around my shoulders to ruffle my hair amicably.

With a breathless chuckle, I admitted. "Probably, I fear my dating times were over before they really started." And Harper didn't even know what a phone is so the chances of him calling me were minimal.

"You can't be that old." He exclaimed and I joined into his bubbling laughter but froze when I saw Elena standing next to his car, looking at me with smoldering coals for eyes when she noticed the casual arm slung around my shoulder. Damon drew it back when we came closer and I wondered whether he felt guilty for this sign of affection. To my great annoyance this seemed to be true because he kept his distance from me to hear whatever Elena had to say.

"I want to come with you and help free Stefan." She said defiantly and I admired her foolish determination for once.

"Not a good idea." Damon said sternly, looking down at her with blazing eyes that showed so much emotion that I had to turn my face away because I felt as if I was intruding on a special moment that was only meant for two.

"Why not?" She screamed rebelliously and I had to bite my lip hard to keep from laughing but I still rolled my eyes at her behavior that seemed quite young to me even though I wasn't that much older than her.

Damon balled his fists in frustration and told her calmly. "Because if you're there, I won't only have to fight a horde of angry vampires but also have to worry about your safety. You'll take the role of the driver, Elena, please."

They stared into each other's eyes for several moments and I could see the conflict in Elena's eyes. She probably felt like listening to Damon would be betraying Stefan, the man she loved but she had to see reason. She nodded curtly and got into the driver's seat stiffly.

Damon got into the seat next to her while I got into the back which was already occupied by another passenger to my great astonishment. "Alaric?"

"You're one of them as well." He groaned in surprise when he recognized my face and I frowned at his unhappy reaction since he had seemed like another of the rare decent men in Mystic Falls.

"Nice to see you as well." I grumbled in reaction to his unfriendly manner.

"Don't blame him for being an ass." Damon chimed from the front. "He's still confused by the little affair I had with his wife Isobel." He smirked devilishly and I felt sympathy for the obviously uncomfortable Alaric.

"Just like I would never blame you for being an ass? I can deal with that." I told him cheekily, throwing Alaric a winning smile who actually managed a weak smile in return. This ended up being the only friendly exchange in the entire ride and the tension inside the vehicle was palpable, the silence as cutting as a knife.

And the wait continued when Alaric got into the house supposedly to make a phone call because his car had broken down. I wasn't even sure what made him help us, aside from the fact that he might sympathize with Stefan. Maybe Damon had threatened to kill him if he didn't help but I remembered what had happened the last time he had tried and been unsuccessful. I watched the rain beat down while the time passed.

Alaric brought the human housekeeper to the front door and I was pulled out of my reverie by the multiple bite marks that covered her visible skin. I knew that I was nowhere from innocent and had used several humans to satiate my needs but this seemed too grotesque to me. Damon tried to compel her into letting us in but she was too far gone to comply to his demands. I flinched when he snapped her neck but had to admit that it was the only way for us to get into the house since a human shield was a clever idea.

The rush of adrenaline took over as we entered the house and I stalked in as Damon's shadow, striking down whoever escaped his grasp. We were granted the element of surprise otherwise we would have never survived against the number of vampires that were still at home here and not roaming around Mystic Falls.

The stake in my hand drove through a woman's heart and straight into the wall behind her so I was momentarily stuck in the wall, which gave another man enough time to drive a stake through my extended arm and I groaned at the amount of pain that shot through my body, enough to paralyze me. But the death blow that I expected never came since a stake was protruding from his chest and he collapsed into a pile of ashes, leaving Damon standing behind the space he once was.

I took a shaky breath and Damon placed his hand on mine to pull the stake out of the wall. "Please don't tell me I have to worry about your safety now as well." He murmured with a lopsided grin that would have made my heart stop if it had still been beating in my chest. Damon's hand braced mine and he quickly pulled the stake out of my arm, making me gasp.

"I'll be fine." I said quietly, feeling warmth tingle in my hand that was still covered by his but I had felt the same way when Harper had kissed my cheek so I didn't give the feeling much attention. This might have been a normal reaction to human touch but I knew that I was only trying to reason with myself.

"Whatever you say, my love." He said huskily and his face was too close for my liking, making me anxious but I pushed him to the side urgently when I spotted a vampire behind his back. My hand lashed out and the stake in my hand plunged deeply into the chest of another man that had been unknown to me. Maybe he had been as innocent as most vampires but since he stood in my way to rescue the kidnapped Stefan, I had no time to show mercy.

"Good one." Damon complimented me but he looked a bit perplexed at my sudden movement and I couldn't blame him since I might have pushed him away either way and Damon Salvatore was not used to rejection from a woman. Better to be rejected than dead in this case so he wouldn't give it much thought I hoped. I didn't want to hurt his feelings but I did very much want to protect mine.

He made his way towards the basement door but I was distracted by a noise behind me and whirled around to be faced with another woman. "So you must be Damon's new toy." She snarled, revealing white rows of teeth and elongated fangs. "The times might have changed but he hasn't." Somewhere deep in my mind her words hurt me because I knew that she was right but thanks to my vampire instincts I was only concentrated on my prey.

We circled each other and fear pulsated beneath my cool surface because she was older than me and obviously clever as well since she was trying to distract me from the fight by talking. She lunged at me and sunk her teeth into the skin above my collarbone, causing me to involuntarily scream in agony. I didn't want to let her hear my suffering since most sadists enjoyed such signs of displeasure and I refused to give other people such power over me so I clamped my mouth shut and staked her abdomen.

She bounded away from me and let out an animalistic snarl but I was upon her in a moment, not making the same mistake of hesitating twice. I succeeded in hitting her heart and watched in dreadful amazement as her veins stood out prominently against her grey skin as she fell to the ground but soon enough she was reduced to ashes.

I followed Damon into the cellar feeling a bit lightheaded from the blood loss but other than that I knew that I could be grateful to still be alive in the face of such ominous threats. Stefan's body was hanging limply from the ceiling with cuts covering his entire body. A bottle of vervaine and a stake stood close to him and I pulled a face when I realized how he had been tortured. He looked extremely weak but Damon and Elena were already at his side and helping him down.

Elena's presence didn't shock me enough as it should have because it wasn't surprising that she was disobedient if she really loved Stefan as much as she always claimed. But what made my chest ache was the fact that the unconscious Harper was bound to a chair next to Stefan. "Harper!" I called in worry and flashed to his side to undo the knots that held him in place. The ropes were laced with vervaine and they burned me but I ignored the pain the best I could to hastily help him out of this imprisonment.

Harper wasn't completely conscious but he was slowly stirring back to life. "Avery?" He murmured in confusion but then his eyes filled with regret. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to stand you up. Are you very put out with me?" His large dark eyes were compelling and my mouth twitched unvoluntarily at his heartfelt confession of letting me down.

"Oh, Harper. I'm not angry. By all means, I would have been the one to stand you up if you hadn't been trapped down here." I said softly, helping him up. He used the opportunity to loop his arm through mine and lead me out of this wicked house.

We stood beneath the pale moonlight and turned our heads skywards. The sky was star filled and gorgeous, mesmerizing in itself. I hadn't realized how much clearer things looked as a vampire since I had never looked up at the night sky and seen how much more I could see. Why couldn't my emotions be just as clear?

I slipped my arm out of Harper's again but he didn't seem offended. "What do you feel like doing tonight?" He asked politely, crossing his arms behind his back.

Before I could answer I suddenly noticed that Stefan and Elena had passed us but Damon hadn't come out and I hadn't paid attention to Alaric who was already running back into the house to come to Damon's aid. I rushed in behind him and was just in time to catch a stake that was aimed for Damon's back and wrestled with the vampire that had thrown it.

The fighting ensued and I completely forgot about the sweet man that I was actually supposed to be going out with as I blocked thrust after thrust and struck out with the stake in my hand, dealing one deathly blow after the other. The three of us were quite efficient and although this was Damon's revenge and not mine, the speed of the brawl was exhilarating.

We wanted to leave the house and the guilt was slowly crawling up upon me since I had simply left Harper to help out Damon and that wouldn't leave the best of impressions on him but my thoughts were interrupted when Damon's hand held me back from walking any further. The house was surrounded and I knew that we wouldn't stand a chance against the mass of these attackers. We retreated into the house with grim faces but the next person that came in was a surprise.

Pearl came in flanked by Harper who looked at me with solemn eyes, making my bad conscience peak in discomfort. Damon was the first to speak and the relief was obvious in his voice. "I'm not at fault for this. Your minions kidnapped my brother and tortured him." He said, incredulously but Pearl's face remained an unmoved mask and for a second I feared that we were done for, that she would kill us now.

"I apologize for their malapropos behavior." She hissed, tilting her head so that the vampires behind her felt addressed. "I will take care of the matter." She assured Damon and we left the house unscathed to my great surprise but not without feeling Harper's stare boring into mine. I didn't know what it meant but I felt saddened that our date hadn't worked out and had taken such a turn for the worse.

I trailed behind the others and kept turning my head to see if he might be following me but no such a thing happened. We found Elena and Stefan beside the corpse of a now dying vampire and Stefan stood above him with blood covering his face. The body turned to ashes and Stefan's face relaxed again but I had never seen him this scary. He had always been such an anti-vampire that even I had forgotten about his true nature.

He seemed a whole lot stronger than before and I thought I could smell Elena's blood a bit stronger than before so she probably gave him her blood. It puzzled me but I didn't think much of it since we were already getting back into the car but a call distracted me. "Avery!"

I whirled around and beamed at Harper who was running towards me, stopping at a safe distance. There was a shy smile on his face that was nothing compared to the brilliant smile that was fixed on my face. At least I wasn't failing completely at this entire dating matter, he still seemed to be interested in getting to know me or at least he wasn't ignoring me completely. "Would you like to take a walk with me?"

I heard someone, presumably Damon, make a gagging sound which was followed by a grunt of discomfort from someone elbowing him into the side or something like that. "I'd love to." We both started moving away from the car and the house full of watchful vampires.

"Don't be too late, my love." Damon called after me, making me roll my eyes and Harper visibly flinched beside me. I knew that Damon was clearly enjoying my discomfort but did he have to exaggerate in such a way?

A silence spread between us that I didn't know how to fill so I waited for Harper to speak. "Is he your boyfriend or whatever they call it these days?"

"He's not, I'm just currently living with Damon and Stefan and the latter can be quite the tease at times." I explained, gently smiling at him but he still seemed insecure, which was just how I felt as well but I tried to hide it as best as I could but I was threading a nervous hand through my hair quite often, betraying my true feelings. "It must be confusing to get used to a new age."

"Certainly." He exclaimed, happy for the change of subject. "I feel completely clueless all the time and I can't even take a lady out on a proper date."

"I don't mind." I assured him and encouraged him to keep talking since I enjoyed the rumble of his deep voice and he hadn't talked a lot in the times that I had seen him. "So how was it like to live in your time?"

Halfway through his recount of the social code of his time, I noticed that he had seemed quite uncomfortable with being the one to dominate the conversation but now he spoke freely and the excitement in his eyes was infectious. I didn't even know why I had been suspicious of him as a tomb vampire when I had first met him. He seemed to be so honestly good.

We walked and talked for what seemed like hours and I found his presence quite soothing compared to the other vampires that I knew. Of course, that was taking his diet out of account since I wasn't sure whether he still fed off of live humans, although I wouldn't judge him if he did but it would be very suspicious if more campers were supposedly attacked by animals in the woods.

Harper and I lead some great conversations that even kept me from realizing that I normally wasn't comfortable in the woods with only one man alone, for obvious reasons. But I was suddenly reminded of the fear that a dark forest brought on within me when Harper's face came irrevocably close to mine. Images flashed through my mind that I hadn't seen in such a while and the impact was so forceful that I was frozen in panic.

It only took a soft brush of Harper's lips against mine to make me lose it completely, stumbling away from him and landing on the ground but I didn't feel the collision since I was already hyperventilating. My breath came fast but I still had the feeling that I couldn't breathe, that I was suffocating. My fingertips started to tingle and I felt disoriented and dizzy.

"Avery, what is it? What did I do? I'm sorry." Harper said heartfelt, his expression blank with surprise. He tried to step closer to me but that only made me back up as dread gripped my innards like a cold hand closing around my heart.

"I… I'm…" I stuttered my voice as thin as paper but I couldn't get any coherent words out of my mouth, especially none that would properly explain my situation.

Harper kneeled down a few spaces away from me and studied me intently, taking in my frightened expression with a hint of pain on his face. "Take deep breaths and then try to talk to me. Please, Avery."

I tried to comply to his advice but it was harder said than done and I had to close my eyes so that I could finally speak my mind. But as soon as the words were out, I knew that it had been the wrong thing to say. "Harper, this is just too much. I've been through a lot and I don't think I can do this." I whispered softly, rubbing at my temples in a desperate attempt to get rid of the anxiety. Out of experience, I knew that all counteractions were futile but I had to try. I couldn't stand the open hurt I saw on Harper's face when I opened my eyes.

"It's okay." He said in a defeated tone and hid his face from me as he got up. I scrambled to my feet but still wasn't able to stand Harper's closeness so I kept my distance and simply listened to what he said. "You haven't been a vampire for a real length of time and I understand that you're still strained."

There was no way that he could actually understand what I meant but I had to try to explain it to him, I couldn't leave him clueless. "No, that's not it." I exclaimed but he cut me off with a gentle gesture of his slender hand.

"You don't have to act like everything's alright. Not in front of me." He added tenderly, the ghost of a smile appearing on his face but it was only a sad one that spoke of unrequited feelings.

I wanted to protest but only opened and closed my mouth around words that I just wasn't able to bring across my lips just yet. "Thank you, Harper." I breathed instead but the smile I tried to muster was more of an estranged smirk than anything else and Harper noticed.

"I'll get going now, there's a lot to repair at the house if you know what I mean." He tried to say lightly but his head drooped as he turned around and he seemed crushed by my reaction. This sounded too much like a goodbye to me and that wasn't what I wanted I realized with a start.

"Wait!" I called out to him, raising a shaking hand towards his retreating figure. He turned around hopefully and I thrust my hands into my pockets to hide the trembling. "When will I see you again?" I asked cautiously, not sure whether he actually wanted to repeat tonight's events after my fallout a moment ago.

A moment of silence ensued in which I took in his startled face nervously, waiting for his answer. A wide smile grew on his face and his white teeth gleamed in stark contrast to his dark skin and the darkness that surrounded us in the night. "Whenever it pleases you." He assured me and disappeared into the night, leaving me with a happy, tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

With a gleeful twist I whirled around and ran through the night elated by the turn of events and the chill of the night air that cut across my face while I ran made my fear melt away. Maybe everything was going to turn out alright.

I skidded to a halt in front of Damon in the living room and the grin on my face sunk into an unhappy frown when I took in his face. Something was wrong again. Why couldn't everything just stay in its place for approximately five minutes? "I'm guessing you're date was a success?" He said, oddly detached as he stared into his whiskey glass as though it held the answers to all his problems.

I chuckled and covered my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing since Damon seemed so serious all the sudden. "It was civil, then I turned it into a disaster, naturally, but he has a high level of tolerance and as it seems I'll see him again soon." Now the grin was back on my face because I couldn't help but be absolutely elated even if Damon looked like he might just want to drown in that crystalline glass of his.

"Good for you." He sneered sarcastically, an emotion very close to anger flitting over his face before he composed himself again.

"Gee, thanks, sunshine." I said in amusement and sat down next to him to be level with his face when I softly asked. "What happened?"

He simply groaned and leaned back on the couch, running an uneasy hand through his face. It took him a moment before he could tell me what was going on but I simply sat next to him patiently while he sorted out his thoughts. "Stefan's on human blood again. All our blood bags have been drained."

"And?" I said, dumbfounded by this piece of information. Draining all of them was a bit greedy but other than that I didn't understand Damon's mood.

Damon shook his head at me and stated, coldly. "You don't understand because you don't know him as long as I do. Stefan on blood is like a serial killer fresh out of jail, ready to kill no matter the cost." That really didn't sound very promising.

"Sounds like you're worried." I teased him but my voice still sounded a bit flatter than usual. Stefan might just blow our cover if he was actually as uncontrollable as Damon said. Besides, there would be a lot of hurt feelings if he ragedout of control.

"It's none of your business." He snapped at me and I sighed, tired of his repellent behavior. "But there's something else, too." Damon laid a gentle hand on mine and I was still too stricken from my earlier experience to let him go through with it. My hand slipped out under his but he left it on my thigh and his next words held me in place. "Vicki's body was found."

My world came to a halt and it didn't matter that I felt attracted to Harper, it didn't matter that Damon's hand made me feel uncomfortable. "Vic?" I whispered and my throat felt constricted by a huge bump. I knew that she was dead but reality had to remind me of my loss over and over again and it didn't seem fair that I should be alive while she was dead.

"I'm sorry." He said earnestly but his words stung me.

"You're sorry?!" I exclaimed in disbelief and jumped away from him as if he had a fatal, infectious disease. "What have you ever been sorry for in your entire existence? So you're sorry you turned her or are you sorry that you weren't the one to kill her instead of Stefan? You make me sick. How dare you feign regret to me?" He stood before me unmoving and I pounded my fists against his chest as fury and pain battled for dominance inside of me. "You turned me and never said you were sorry about that!" I croaked breathlessly, my anger still burning within me but the words were running out. "You…"

Damon's lips crashed into mine before I could rant at him anymore and his lips captured mine in a searing kiss. My back was suddenly against the wall and I let all my anger and desperation fuel the kiss on and found myself pressed into the couch in the next moment with Damon hovering above me, his face grave. My mind was reeling and everything was spinning out of control before me. What was all this supposed to mean?

"I never apologized for turning you because I'm not sorry about it but I am sorry that my actions hurt you in the end because that's not what I wanted." He explained fiercely and then stood before the couch, peering down on me with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "Never fails to shut you up, huh?"

Why was he playing with me all the time? I closed my eyes to forget his beautiful face and the kiss because it meant nothing. That was just what Damon was like, whose retreating footsteps I heard which meant that I was now completely alone with my raging feelings that were burning me out from the inside until I only felt charred and empty. I curled up and let exhaustion take me to someplace where all this wasn't happening and Damon wasn't the one capable of comforting me like no other.