~Wrench's memories were interrupted when a black clad figure towered over her. Her eyes focused and re-focused while she stood up and shook wet debris and clumps of dirt from her pants.
"Damon...I..." She tried to start, but she couldn't continue while her older brother was staring at her with the most angry, vicious, dark eyes she had ever noticed. Damon was his usual self, dressed in black with silver boot buckles and belt buckle, but he looked so mad he could spit.
"Quite ironic that you are the one coming to me instead of the other way around," he stated not too happily.
Wrench gulped. "I know, Damon. I came to ask you something. And I really need your help with something," she said as simply as she could.
Damon laughed an icy laugh. There was no humor in the laugh. "Now why should I help you when you shunned me in front of a whole party of viewers? Did you know that the entire town is now talking about it?" he asked, crossing broad arms across his chest.
"Because I came to you." At his blank look, she sighed impatiently. "Would I ever come to you before now?" she added hopefully.
That made Damon's face soften, but it was still cold with fury. Wrench watched his eyes become confused and thoughtful, all the while shivering as a gust of wind swiped more rain into her face.
But Damon was just standing there, eyes going this way and that, trying to think, trying to figure things out. She had a point; she had never come to him before.
He stood there for another ten minutes, just standing there. Wrench gave up; her face cracked with tears and she began to walk away. But Damon's long arms encircled her, drawing her up to his warm body heat.
"Okay, okay. I guess I was being a bit too harsh," he said in her ear. His voice was now as soft as velvet, and what really surprised her was he didn't sound the least bit sarcastic of falsely sweet or over tempered like he usually was. He sounded sincere and honest and so incredibly sweet.
This was a totally new Damon Salvatore. The original one wouldn't be hugging her right now; he would be telling her to fuck off and never come near him again for the way she had acted around him lately. He would have the same slightly amused look but that same face would be icy and have a slight sneer on the lips.
But this...he felt and sounded like a real brother. A real brother that wouldn't have pushed her away so much because of Katherine or his studies...a real brother that wouldn't have told her to be an honest to God lady other than a desperate little child who only craves attention...a real brother that never told her how pretty she looked or how respectful she was whenever father was around. This was a brand new Damon. It seemed as if all of his ignorance and cockiness towards her had dissipated when he held her right then, in pouring down rain, a new leather jacket slung across his shoulders, midnight hair flapping in the wind rushing by them. His harshness was gone; his hug was warm and comforting.
"I'm so sorry, Damon," she muttered into his shoulder. "I didn't mean to..."
"Ssh. Just forget that now. Stay in the present, not the past," he murmured, voice silky and soft like velvet across polished wood.
They just held each other for a while afterwards, soaking wet, tightly embracing each other. Damon planted a kiss on her forehead, rubbing her arms soothingly.
"Damon," Wrench began. Damon waited patiently. "I...I really have to talk to you about something. Something that may sound very dumb, but I really need to know what to do." Damon gave her a strange look, but he waited a little longer while she gathered her words together and began to speak again.
~Zane lay under the heavy covers of his bed, where he still smelled the fragrance of Wrench's hair and skin on his pillows. He flicked a spare glance at her nice shirt still on the floor near the door, as well as her black bra strewn across the carpet. His neck still stung from her bite, and he still felt her kisses across his skin.
Zane didn't really know what to feel around her; of course he loved her more than his life, but also felt a bit betrayed. He felt...miffed, a little. She should have told him in the first place, before they even had a crush on one another, that she was a vampire. He really wished that she had told him everything, especially when it came to her brothers. After meeting her older brother, Damon, he knew why she didn't tell him, but it would have been nicer to tell him in the first place other than lie to him for the past few years.
Zane added more pressure to the bite on his neck with his handkerchief to stop the bleeding from spilling out onto his soft white pillows.
His bod felt strange; the bite was painful, due to Wrench having sharp fangs, but he never had the desire to kiss someone so badly. He had to admit; there were a few girls who thought of him to be hot, but they never liked the thought of him working in a mechanics shop where he got dirty and swore so much though he hardly swore in front of Wrench.
He had fallen for Wrench ever since he had laid his eyes on her for the first time.
It was only a year ago, and he had been working his simple job, brushing papers away and stacking cash into the register. It was daily work, but he didn't mind it. He actually enjoyed working with the customers, even if they were flirtatious with him or just plain grumpy.
"Hey, Zane," yelled Conner from a row of shelves he was scanning through.
"Yeah, buddy?" he answered, placing a dime and two pennies in the register.
"I think we need more job applications. Someone took our last one." Conner, Zane's best bud since fourth grade, walked up and patted his shoulder. Zane's gaze followed to where Conner was already looking. Conner was right; the application box was empty.
"I don't think we have anymore. Dan got some yesterday, but then all the gay men and trash talking assholes took them," Zane muttered with no one listening to them. They both cracked up at that whole-heartily. And that was when Conner was called away to the garages that Zane first noticed her behind the counters, waiting to be served.
He felt a slight blush spread across his cheeks. Good God, she was the most...the most...beautiful thing he had ever seen. Sleek black curls, chocolate eyes, a figure to drive men crazy, face gorgeous and sensuous enough to drive a sculpture insane...perfection.
"Hi. Can I help you?" he asked politely, watching how her movements were so graceful. Even the batting of her eyelashes was so elegant, which by the way were so thick and long. He wondered if those were her real eyelashes...
"I...um...want to turn in an application, please," she said, passing him an application with elegant cursive scrawled across. And that voice! To him, it sounded like angel's most precious golden bells, soft and rang in his head. He mentally shook himself and answered with a slightly surprised expression.
"Well, it's been a while since a female tried to apply for a job here," he said, flashing his teeth at her.
She didn't laugh, but a slight chuckle escaped her lips, but it was a small twitch of her lips. It was ironic; it sounded sad and lost. "Yeah. well, I need a job, and there is no where else around town that will let a girl apply, so...here I am." She gestured around at the people buzzing by chatting or demanding to be serviced.
"Well, okay. We need some fresh blood anyway, so let me go see if Dan wants to see today or another day," he chuckled, and excused himself to search for Dan in his office.
Back in the present, Zane was still laying on his bed, neck continually bleeding, thinking about the possibility of "soul mates," or people that were meant to be together forever. He used to believe that soul mates weren't supposed to exist, but the thought of love at first sight made him shiver with a thought of Wrench's naked form in his arms.
Zane knew that most people said that soul mates don't exist. Zach and Tanner used to say that "soul mates are just instincts telling you that this is a person you could live with in a long-term relationships but there was no possible way that two people could remain with each other forever." Facility researchers from Universities proved otherwise. But Zane was a strong believer in soul mates. And Zane had a small theory that maybe Zane and Wrench were soul bound to each other.
After nearly an hour of trying to suggest that Wrench and him might be soul bound to one another, he fell asleep, mind drifting in and out of past memories of him and Wrench together. The reunion a week ago when Wrench had practically yelled at Damon for being a prick to her. Zane was proud of her for sticking up to herself, but doing it in front of the whole building must have been so embarrassing for her. Poor girl.
His thoughts went on, making Zane physically smile whilst he dreamt about him and Wrench dancing at the party, holding her warmth so close to him.
~Wrench returned to the shop as a raven, feeling so much better and much more confident to biting someone again. Damon, as a crow followed her, and the little black bead of his eye twinkled encouragingly. It felt good to be loved by her brother again. But she knew deep in her soul that there will always be a dark corner where Stefan's love should be; he would never appreciate her at all. She would be left alone.
Arriving at the shop at around midnight, Damon and her landed on the roof. But before Damon took off, he turned to her, bowed like he would have in Italy so many years ago, and kissed the back of her hand. Wrench colored, and snorted. "You are such a ladies' man," she commented, but hugged him warmly and accepted the goodnight kiss on the cheek. She watched him take off into the sky.
But Wrench didn't go back inside. It had stopped raining, and she loved the smell of fresh rain water against the trees and grass around her. She sat down, pulled up her knees, and thought real hard.
Wrench had been thinking about how Zane would look if she so happened to change him into a vampire. Straighter and whiter teeth, bulkier muscles underneath that tight T-shirt, inhuman abilities to run fast and lift things that weigh next to a ton. The positive side to that would be that he loved her, and vice versa. They were in total love, and if she did turn him, he would be with her forever, two immortals walking the earth together, with nothing in their way. She wouldn't have to watch him grow old and die.
Yet, the negatives nearly outvoted the positives. If Zane should change, he would have to watch his friends die of old age while he was young and beautful forever. Wrench had known that he would have to feed on humans for a while, and all the while she will train him to eat animals like Stefan or processed meat in a blender like what she ate, but that could take so many years to accomplish. And another thing, he wouldn't be able to work at Dan's anymore; he would have to go from shop to shop, staying for a year or so then leave for somewhere else.
Wrench made up her mind, and flung herself back into her bedroom's window.
