Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries – but, every night while I'm sleeping – Well…never mind about that…it's private. ;)
Timeline: Picks up just after 'As I Lay Dying' leaves off – Assume possible spoilers for anything before that. Um, also assume some questionable language – because that is how Damon and I roll. (Don't say I didn't warn you….)
A/N: Hi Guys! Um, surprise? Early post. Thank last week's 3-day weekend.
So glad you all got a kick out of drunk Damon in the last chapter – because I sure did! I don't know if Matt will be showing up anymore – but, I think he served his purpose admirably.
Ah, but now that I've done Drunken cliche and random cultural reference spewing Damon - I have to try to work up some more witty snark...Life is Hard...:P
Previously on the Totally Fake Vampire Diaries…
As Damon spoke he was concentrating harder than he would ever care to admit on figuring out which of the several blurry glasses he could see on the bar before him was the actual tumbler and so he altogether missed the scathing glower that his more or less innocuously intended comment had elicited from Liz Forbes.
Liz clenched a fist, downed her whiskey and turned back to the vampire, who instantly smiled roguishly and offered her a refill, "So, why don't you tell me why you're really here?"
The truth was that despite their rift – Damon was glad that Liz was here. If nothing else, he was glad for the distraction. He was glad for the excuse to keep drinking – he hadn't engaged in some good old-fashioned self-indulgent, self-destructive behavior in…too long.
He was less glad of the vervain syringe that he had somehow managed to not see coming.
Burning Down Atlanta.
Chapter 21: Captive.
Setting: Miami Beach Resort of Rippers: Beach of Bereavement.
Stefan stared.
The cravings, the images, the voices, the past, the blood-lust – it had all finally subsided into a low humming, ever-present static, white noise that left him calmer now, but still twitchy.
They were dead.
All dead.
An entire party of twenty plus. Their body parts mangled and strewn and ripped apart by Klaus. He preferred this to burning or to burial.
"Think of the chaos, Stefan! Think of the fear. Think of the hours and hours of Shark-Week on the Discovery Channel."
They would hide their actions in plain sight. Not out of fear of detection and not out of guilt, but with exuberance and with exultation.
And Stefan lay with his body at rest, breathing controlled, his head on a mossy piece of driftwood his eyes directed heavenward and he smiled, feeling more at peace than he had since he could remember. He stayed that way until Klaus, in his vigorous and exacting annihilation of the 'leftovers' sprayed Stefan with blood splatter.
Stefan bolted upright; his eyes surrounded immediately by thick black veins and growled his displeasure at his canine companion, who promptly growled back, yellow eyes gleaming.
His rare moment of repose irrevocably broken by a premature re-awakening of his senses and his bloodlust for which he had no immediate remedy, Stefan stood his teeth still bared and approached the lapping waves. His body shuddering and humming with power and restless untapped energy, he stood at the water's edge, trying to skip stones across the mysterious dark abyss – a wretched and tortured and unintentional allusion to another person, another lifetime.
He growled again and turned away from the horizon, giving up his momentary attempt at a distraction. Something about it, something about the simple action was wrong. The easy indulgence in muscle memory, the familiar act of mindless repetition... It should soothe.
It didn't.
Elena…the name lapped at his mind like the ocean on the shore…just as dark and just as deep.
…is dead, he reminded himself viciously as he kicked a disemboweled torso through the tree-line – like to see them blame that on a shark…
Right?
Setting: The Salvatore Boarding House of Boozing and Betrayal: Are You Gonna Drink That?
Liz hurriedly called over to her deputies stationed on the highway for help moving the body.
That vervain had been the last of the last of their supply and it wouldn't last very long. Damon was old, Damon was strong, and the Sheriff knew from Caroline that they had all been ingesting vervain – now that this…Original person had Stefan, so either the vervain that she had just shot him up with would add to what was already in his system and successfully incapacitate him, or the stuff that was already in his system was helping him build up an immunity to what she just shot him full of. In which case, he might wake up at any moment.
Liz really didn't know, and she really did not want to take any chances.
But, she also didn't want him dead…yet. She wanted answers. All of them. She wanted to know every terrible thing Damon had done since he had been in Mystic Falls, wanted to know the fate of Carol Lockwood…
She stared down at Damon sprawled helplessly on the floor for a long moment, her face expressionless. He had gone down without much of a fight and with a total lack of his usual poise. Like dead weight. Liz knew that anyone pumped full of incapacitating drugs would respond the same, but the expression felt especially apt.
Somehow, however, even as he had looked at Liz in cloudy but genuine surprise and…betrayal? Damon had managed to deposit his glass safely on the bar on his way down. Sheriff Forbes nudged the knocked out vampire lightly and without malice; one booted foot making contact with a lifeless shoulder to assure herself of his unconsciousness.
She then took a in a quick scan of the room self-consciously, as though it were even possible for her deputies to arrive that fast, and as though Damon himself would find it objectionable, she grabbed Damon's tumbler and finished his drink for him.
It had been a long day, and it was shaping up to be an even longer night.
Setting: Ye Olde Lockwood Estate: Please Don't Ask Us About the Chains – This is the WB, not Educational Programming.
Katherine gave Bonnie a good shove. Not because she was being obstinate (although she was… well Katherine knew she would be as soon as she woke up, at any rate) but, because she felt like it.
"Good morning, Star-shine," she cooed disingenuously, as she crouched on the neglected and splintered wood floor of the old house, with a playful glint in her dark eyes.
Bonnie's form almost lost in the shadows of a dusty corner of a dusty room stirred grudgingly into wakefulness. "Mayor Lockwood?" She questioned groggily.
"Nope," Katherine smiled, "but, she is here. Guess again."
"I'm so sorry, Bonnie," Carol offered.
Bonnie's eyes narrowed as she tried to adjust them to the darkness that surrounded her, her body stiffened in recognition and her face became a mask of stoicism. "Katherine," she stated flatly.
"Oh, no fun – you're too good at this game," Katherine pouted, "It's the hair, isn't it?"
Bonnie pretended to consider for a beat, her eyes flashing with hostility, "Oh, I don't know…maybe, it's the fact that you're a selfish, lying, dangerous bitch."
Katherine smiled again, Damon was right about this one: judgey, judgey, judgey, "Touché, little Bennett witch." Her hands on her knees, Katherine pushed herself gracefully into a standing position and turning clapped her hands together once in satisfaction, "Well, since we're all here now, and all awake," she turned to look down pointedly at Bonnie still on the floor before addressing someone or someones that Bonnie couldn't see, "We can finally get down to business."
Bonnie glared up at the back of Katherine's head defiantly, "Whatever it is that you want, you have to know that I won't help you."
"And, you…," Katherine, her face still serene, spun on Bonnie in one fluid motion and with her hands still entwined pointed at her triumphantly with both hands, "have to know that I won't take 'no' for an answer. I need a witch, and you're it."
As she spoke, four young men – vampires, judging by the speed of their movements– appeared suddenly behind her.
"These…very… good boys were promised sunlight rings in exchange for their service to me," she explained lightly, as she pressed one hand against the solid chest of one of her 'boys' and watched its progress from pectorals down to abs, before pulling her eyes away and looking back towards Bonnie, "and I've explained to them," Katherine slitted her eyes in tacit warning, "that I always keep my promises."
Bonnie could not bite back a snort, but she managed to hold her tongue and refrain from articulating any verbal retorts, and Katherine was forced to be satisfied. After all, she couldn't kill the little wretch.
"Please," Bonnie postured, "I can take any one of them down."
"Yes, but can you take all of them down?"
Katherine quieted, waiting with one brow arched for Bonnie answer. When it was clear that Bonnie had nothing to say, Katherine went on; "Right. Didn't think so. And besides, I have others – and it wouldn't take much to track down one of your friends – I have a freestanding invitation into the Gilbert house, remember?"
Bonnie maintained her silence but locked imploring eyes on Mayor Lockwood, who responded by averting her own, suddenly taking an avid interest in the dilapidated state of the Lockwood property. It had historical significance to her family after all…to the whole town really. Maybe she would invest in restoring it – then she could host period costume dress balls here every year…
Bonnie went rigid, her pleading eyes relapsing into detached defiance. The Mayor had been neutralized, compelled probably – and she knew that she would have to play along. For the moment.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I love Bennett witches – so …compliant," Katherine taunted, "You know I think I'm actually glad I didn't manage to wipe out your entire bloodline back in 1864."
Behind her, one of Katherine's voiceless henchmen dropped to the ground with a thud, holding his head and writhing in pain. She panned around to watch for a moment before chastising the witch, "Now, now," she tsked, "There's no need to get all testy."
"Sorry," Bonnie said tartly her signature crooked smile firmly in place, "…couldn't help myself."
Carol cleared her throat disrupting their endless antagonistic banter, "I'm sorry," she apologized, "I don't mean to interrupt, but – Katherine, am I done?"
Katherine frowned a little, turning her attention to Carol Lockwood, whose presence she had been successfully ignoring for the last hour, "Not yet, Mrs. Mayor – I need one more thing from you."
Setting: The Boarding House Cellar: No One Expects The Mystic Falls Inquisition.
Damon groaned piteously as he slowly regained consciousness; the first things that he noted was the throbbing in his skull and the worst case of dry-mouth he'd experienced since the morning after his little post-Tomb debacle co-ed party. Could vampires even get dehydrated? For water?
He reached out instinctively for a pillow to throw over his pounding head to shield himself from the dim light in the room and suddenly became cognizant of the increasingly familiar tactile sensation of the cold, hard and irregular stone surface beneath him – a far cry from the absurdly large and inviting bed in which he generally awoke.
And then there was the smell; the damp, dank and heavy air mixing with mold and the residual scent of the vervain plant that had been stashed here until so recently – and even a faint, but lingering trace of burnt fabric and hair. Images from a night not too long ago flashed through Damon's addled brain, …Me …Flamethrower…Elijah….
Shit.
With bloodshot eyes still closed Damon's hands balled into tight fists, his well groomed nails cutting painfully into the soft flesh of his palms until they drew blood. His mouth twisted itself grotesquely into a furious scowl before unleashing a tirade of explosive expletives at finding himself once again being held captive in his own fucking basement, "Shiiiiiiiit!"
His voice cracked a little, his throat parched and a little contracted from the poison that had landed him here. His fists pounded in unsatisfying futility on the gray masonry beneath him.
"…Goddamned sonofabitch! Motherfucker! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking motherfucker!"
Despite the vestigial aching in his limbs, Damon's eyes flew open and he threw himself violently into a sitting position and bellowed out the name of the first perpetrator that came into his frayed, fuzzy and frazzled mind, "STEFAN!"
"Try again, Damon."
"Liz?" Damon's entire face quirked into something ugly as momentary confusion washed over him until the events of the last week returned to him in all their inglorious clarity. Maybe he should have stayed asleep. "Goddammit," he said again.
"I thought Stefan had been kidnapped?" Liz asked with venomous accusation in her voice, "Or was that a lie too?"
Damon snapped to attention and his eyes fell on the Sheriff in angry exasperation, "Wait, what?"
She heaved herself off of an old crate and stood to approach the cell, though not too closely as she gestured decisively for her two deputies to leave them, before turning to Damon – who had quickly gotten to his feet inside. He was secure, and this…was personal. She met Damon's eyes as she added, "Don't go too far, though – I might need you."
Baines and Chapman nodded reluctantly in deference to Liz and to their chain of command and after each threw an assessing glare at the caged vampire, they backed uneasily out of the room.
Damon surged to his feet and paced rabidly inside his tiny prison, his mind racing, "Liz," he growled, "Seriously? It's like you want me to kill you?"
"Damon," Liz tried to sound reasonable, "the only reason that you're still alive right now, is because I wouldn't let my deputies stake you."
"Stake me? I thought your deputies didn't even know about me?" He stopped his pacing and turned to watch the sheriff closely through accusing wide eyes, "No, I know that they didn't."
Liz looked briefly at the ground (and away from Damon Salvatore's unnerving crazy eyes) and clasped her hands staunchly before her, "I couldn't very well take you out alone," she explained simply.
"Liz," Damon struggled to keep his voice even and his composure intact, "…whatever it is that you think I did – I didn't do it."
"Yeah, just like you didn't kill Zach Salvatore, right?"
Damon advanced, cursing, with disconcerting supernatural speed on the ancient metal bars separating him from freedom and Liz from the complimentary heart-ectomy that she insisted on courting and shook them until they groaned and trembled under the abuse.
Liz reigned in a strong urge to recoil; instead she took a measured step back, "Going after Carol Lockwood, Damon?" She shook her head slowly, "Bad decision."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Damon rattled his cage again, his eyes gleaming dangerously in the poorly lit cellar. Damon knew from bad decisions – and he'd been guilty of making plenty of them. Starting with Katherine; waiting for Katherine, returning for Katherine, staying in this fucked up little burg, not compelling Liz Forbes within an inch of her life two days ago…and of course, not forgetting the abysmal fail that was getting himself mixed up with his brother, Elena and the rest of the Mystic Falls Conspiracy of Stupid.
"Where's Carol Lockwood?" she insisted, "We can't find her."
"Carol?" The question belatedly permeating the thick layer of Damon's bile and rage to reach his comprehension center and he was stunned, "How in the hell am I supposed to know where Carol Lockwood is?"
The sheriff was almost taken aback at Damon's apparent sincerity, but refused to capitulate so quickly, "She called me, Damon…she told me that you had attacked her."
Damon slammed his hands again on the bars with excessive force, "Do I fucking look like I have her?" he demanded. What the fuck was going on?
"Liz," he began, his voice a low rumble deep in his throat, "You have to let me out of here."
"I…I can't do that Damon."
"I'll compel the deputies, Liz…no one has to get hurt…" Suddenly, Damon's expression darkened again with grim realization and accusation, "She knows?"
Liz thought that she could literally see the severity of the implications as Damon rolled them over in his mind. And this time Liz was surprised. And considering her current opinion of Damon, unreasonably defensive, "Well, I didn't tell her."
Damon was silent as he regarded her trying to make sense of whatever was happening. "Well," he spoke at length, in an even tone infused with dangerous irony, "I sure didn't tell her."
There were so many things wrong with this scenario – Damon didn't even know where to begin, "Go ahead, call anyone – call everyone –I really don't care… I don't have a single unaccounted for hour today. Hell, I stop watching them for a second and Elena tries to get herself killed, kidnapped or worse."
Also, if Damon wanted Carol Lockwood dead…then Carol Lockwood would be dead, not running around breathing and causing trouble – and certainly not off somewhere with her fucking cell phone so she could conference call everyone about how Damon Salvatore was a goddamned vampire! Damon almost snorted in derision – what the fuck was wrong with Liz? Did she really think so little of his abilities? He cast her an aggrieved sidelong glance.
Did people really think he had so little foresight?
"Really?" His voice was filled with unabashed incredulity.
Liz shook her head slightly, listening but non-committal.
"Really?"
"Damon…"
Both vampire and human head's spun to look at the closed door to the cellar as the sound of a muffled squeal, followed closely by a scuffle came suddenly from the other side.
Liz sprinted for the door, grasping at her holstered weapon and calling to Damon over her shoulder, "Who is it, Damon?"
"Again, how the fuck am I supposed to know?"
Liz began to turn the knob as one of her deputies cried out in pain, "She bit me!"
Damon didn't speak, but grunted as he rededicated himself to working on the bars, trying to destroy the door which held him back.
"I got her." Baines bit out. But she sure put up one hell of a fight.
Sheriff Forbes drew her gun, steeled herself and ripped open the door and watched in startled annoyance as Deputy Baines lost the support of the solid door behind him, lost his footing and rolled into the interior room desperately trying to hold on to a kicking and biting Elena Gilbert. Chapman followed closely on their heels, watching dumbly and nursing a dully throbbing hand.
"Let go of me."
"Elena?" Damon shouted, "What the hell are you doing here? ...Get off of her you asshole – she isn't a vampire."
Liz danced a quick two-step backwards to avoid having the struggle happen at her feet, "Elena?"
"Get off of me," she gritted out through a tightly clenched jaw.
Liz sighed in defeat, "Baines, she's a teenager – get the hell off of her."
"What are you doing here, Elena?" Damon repeated.
Affronted, offended and irritated, Elena let out of huff and stood up, "I came to talk to you."
"Yeah," Damon drew out the word, canted his head and smiled deprecatingly, "Not really a good time."
"Damon," Elena breathed in some agitation as she grabbed his hand through the bars, "Did she hurt you?"
Damon gave her hand a tiny squeeze, "I'm fine Elena." Seeing the concern and the niggling doubt in her eyes, he took a quick stock of himself and sighed, "I'll be fine Elena."
Elena nodded tentatively and threw the Sheriff a poisoned look, "What's wrong Sheriff? You didn't have any innocent bystanders to kill tonight?"
"Elena…"
"I don't want to hear it," Elena cut her off; "Damon needs to eat." Elena pushed her way past the Sheriff and made her way into the adjacent room where the blood was stored.
Someone is fucking with us, Liz."
Liz stance had relaxed into a lean against a wall near the cell, her nose a little wrinkled and her mouth slightly open, "Who, Damon? You and Caroline are the only vampires in town."
Elena found that she couldn't quite keep the self-righteousness out of her voice as she called to them, "Damon hasn't done anything. He's been with us all day."
"That we know of," he corrected with furrowed brows as he ignored Elena and resumed his pacing. His anger with Liz for turning on him – again – had been displaced by his relentless certainty that this had something to do with Klaus. He could sense it immediately when Liz went pale and rigid. He sped to the front of his cell, grasping the bars, "What?"
"Damon…I…" She looked at him then with something like a nascent regret in her light eyes.
"What? What is it?"
"Grove Hill," she swallowed hard.
We're speaking in riddles now? Suddenly, Damon could see where Caroline had picked up some of her more irritating conversational skills and knew with absolute one hundred percent conviction that the blond didn't fall far from the tree, "What about Grove Hill?"
"An officer went missing…at a foreclosure…"
Damon processed. Oookay, that didn't necessarily have to mean anything – except that this was Mystic Falls… and Grove Hill… and a foreclosure…
"Actually, I've recently learned that quite a few people have gone missing in Grove Hill in the past few days…"
"How many?" Elena questioned as she re-entered the room with an over abundance of blood packets cradled in her arms and tried to hand one awkwardly to Damon who stared at her. "What?" Damon just shrugged, reached his hand out and plucked one from her arms.
"Eight."
Damon let out a slow whistle, "We have company."
Liz was already unlocking the door to the cell when the call came in.
Setting: Outside the Mystic Falls Grill: Doesn't ANYBODY lock ANYTHING in this Place?
Ric drove into the empty parking lot behind Mystic Fall's most popular restaurant, jumped out of his car and approached the building. There were no lights on and the place looked deserted – and closed.
Now, Ric knew from the night that Jeremy had alm…well from the night that Jeremy had actually died that closed in this town didn't always mean locked. And, if Matt had been right – it was possible that Damon really was passed out at the bar and Matt had simply high-tailed it out of here to be rid of him.
And now, breaking and entering. Why the fuck not? He had come all this way, after all.
Quickly and quietly checking out the street around him for curious passersby and finding none, Ric tried the door and finding it unlocked, stole inside for a peek.
Ric made his way without too much difficultly past the pool tables to the area where the bar was located, relying on deeply ingrained muscle memory to get him there in the absence of any lights. The truth being that Ric could probably find his way to the bar in his sleep.
As he tentatively groped the smooth wood of the counter top in the dark for a sleeping, drooling vampire – his ears perked at the sound of someone throwing open the Grill door, "Who's there?" a deep authoritative voice rang out.
Ric twisted around to see the silhouette of a man in uniform, one hand unmistakably hovering near a holstered gun standing between Ric, the streetlamps outside and freedom. Ric grimaced, "Uh…my name is Ric Saltzman…and I'm just looking for…"
The silhouette stepped forward, getting larger and larger until it walked out of the light and was the size and shape of a human being again, "I don't care what you're looking for, Mr. Saltzman. This is private property."
All the death, all the murder, all the vampires and magic rings and witch crematoriums and kidnapped werewolves and werewolf kidnappers and fiery circles of sacrificial death…and this…. This is where the law in this town steps in to do its' goddamned job? Seriously?
"I don't much care for that look you're giving me right now, sir. Please, hands where I can see them and step away from the bar."
Ric stepped forward helplessly, his arms held hovering in the air between his shoulders and his ears.
"And, before you try to tell me some sad story about your poor bastard alcoholic friend that you were just looking for to try to get him home alive – I have to tell you that I can smell the tequila on your breath from here."
Damon was dead for this, Ric thought sullenly as the sheriff's deputy patted down his jacket and thighs deftly with strong yet disquietingly gentle hands.
They both stopped as Deputy Richards police radio crackled to life at his hip:
Mayor Lockwood has called in. There's a hostage situation at the Port. Repeat a hostage situation at the Port. The Mayor and an Elena Gilbert are being held against their will by Damon Salvatore.
Ric's eyes went wide and his mouth twisted into disbelief, his grievances and the assault on his dignity forgotten as he listened…What the fuck?
A/N 2: You guys the show is starting up again! I am both really excited and a little scared now that this story is officially going AU. I've never tried to write a story while a completely different (and better) canon one is airing parallel! My point? Eh. I'm just afraid my inspiration to write a S3 fic is going to dry up when confronted with the ACTUAL S3…and that nothing will seem 'in character' anymore…. I will try – but, you guys might have to kick my ass a little if you really want it.
And, so this doesn't read as a naked plea for reviews – I will add that you can PM me for a private ass-kicking session if that be your preference (and should it become necessary – which, hopefully, it will not).
/End Terrified Rant.
Also: Sorry if that was a bit rushed – and it *was* - I just wanted to get the damn thing posted. I'm actually trying to *advance the plot*. I know, it's shocking...Aaand, I'll probably be back for edits. Hopefully - I'll get better with this 'plot' thing...as in actually skipping irrelevant scenes... :)