hi, pretty people! enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 6 - Friday Night Bites Pt. 2

Michelle Gellar had been put in many awkward situations. From rejecting Jason Mann in the eighth grade when he asked her to the school dance in front of everybody, to having to substitute for the guidance counselor and trying to comfort some freshman and their love triangle without knowing what to say. That one was painfully awkward.

Now, as she was sitting at her student's dinner table with her boyfriend, Damon, whose attractive edginess was wearing off to plain weirdness, she realized that this would probably go down in her book of life as the most awkward experience she'd ever had.

There was a weird tension between Damon and his brother, who she hadn't had in class yet, but had seen around the school. Maybe it was because she and Damon crashed their night? That was pretty rude. From what she'd gathered, Damon was very overprotective over Stefan. Either that or he just never wanted Stefan to be happy, but that option seemed less realistic.

She looked over at the Bennett twins. The girls somehow had the exact same schedule, so she always had them in class together. Their reactions to this painful situation were different. Bonnie looked like her mind was elsewhere, she was daydreaming. Her jaw was resting on her palm while her elbow rested on the table. Her eyes were gazing off into the distance.

Natalia, the other Bennett twin, looked calculating. It was apparent on her face that she was trying to devise a plan. A plan for what? Michelle had no clue. Natalia kept trading looks with Stefan, who had a similar look on his face. It looked like they were having a conversation with each other using their eyes only.

Caroline Forbes, who she had only had in class once (Caroline switched out immediately when she realized they'd be doing budgeting and economics - she was already in a math class, she didn't need another one), was trying hard to keep a conversation flowing. She kept asking questions to the group, hoping to garner a good enough response from somebody. But everytime she tried to start a conversation, she got clipped, short replies only in return. She kept on trying, though.

Vicki Donovan was living for the awkwardness. She looked positively joyful as she watched the uncomfortable expressions on everybody's faces.

Elena Gilbert was trying to catch Stefan's attention. Perhaps to salvage Stefan's happiness from earlier in the night? It couldn't feel good to have a whole dinner party in honor of somebody to only have them be obviously uncomfortable for most of the night.

Lastly, Damon was enjoying himself, much like Vicki. Except he was clearly trying to egg on the unpleasant situation.

"So… um, how's football going, Stefan?" Caroline asked, looking at Stefan who was communicating wordlessly with Natalia on the other side of the table.

"Hm? Oh, pretty good. Matt and Tyler are great teammates." He answered without taking his eyes off Natalia, who was trying to tell him something.

"Oh, well you know what I always tell Stefan," Damon started with a smirk, "You have to engage. You can't just sit there and wait for life to come to you. You have to go get it. Stef wasn't always so good at that."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Stefan asked, finally taking his eyes off of Natalia.

"Relax, brother. I'm only saying that for so long instead of living, you stayed in your shell. But I guess there were some occasions where you ripped your way out of the antisocial box that you put yourself in." The elder Salvatore brother grinned mischievously.

Clearly that struck a chord with Stefan, but before he could respond, Elena interrupted them. "Why don't we move to the living room? It'll be more comfortable." She asked desperately.

Stefan took a deep breath and nodded. They all moved to the living room. After a few more painful minutes of conversation, the twins, Elena, Vicki and Caroline went into the kitchen to start cleaning up. Damon, Ms. Gellar and Stefan were left in the living room.

"What year are you originally from, again?" Bonnie whispered to her sister while they were washing the dishes. She was trying to be mindful, knowing Elena, Care and Vicki were in the kitchen with them, but she just had so many questions.

"Not now, Bonnie." Natalia whisper yelled. "The others are right there."

"Nat, please! I'm dying here!"

"Fine. I'm from 2021." Nattie said reluctantly.

"Wow. Flying cars?" The younger twin asked in awe.

"No flying cars."

"Jet packs?" Bonnie inquired, following around her sister who was moving to put away dishes.

"Nope."

"So what is there in the future?"

"Global pandemic."

"Huh." Bonnie mused, looking at the ground. "Anything positive?"

"I don't know, kid. The new avengers movies? Look, the future is fine, but just be happy you're still in 2009. Live in the moment."

That answer satisfied Bonnie for now (it really didn't, but she knew that when Nat called her 'kid' she was about to snap). "Fine. But this conversation isn't over." Bonnie went back to drying the dishes.

Natalia sighed and mumbled, "Of course it isn't."

After a few more minutes of washing and drying, Nat felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Stefan. Behind Stefan, Damon was flirting with Elena exaggeratedly and everybody else was still cleaning up.

Stefan motioned his head towards Ms. Gellar, who was sitting on the couch drinking wine alone.

Nattie nodded and the pair made their way to the dining room so they could talk without being interrupted.

"We should talk to her." Was the first thing Stefan blurted.

"What?"

"Ms. Gellar. We should talk to her to see if there are any holes in her memory or anything. It doesn't seem like he's compelling her, and I don't see a scarf, but maybe he's trying to make us think he's not doing any-"

"She's not being compelled." Natalia said confidently.

"How do you know that? I know she doesn't seem like it, but-"

"Stefan, it's okay. She's okay. He's not hurting her." Nat soothed, absentmindedly placing her hand on his arm. "I made a deal with Damon. If he doesn't hurt or kill anyone I love or anyone under eighteen, and only has consensual relationships with people - no compelling or scaring somebody into a relationship - then I will tell him what he wants to know about his future." She explained.

She looked over at Ms. Gellar again who was now biting her nails and staring at the floor distantly, probably wondering how she got stuck in such a weird situation.

When she turned her gaze back to Stefan, she noticed that he was staring at her weirdly.

"What is it?" She asked, subconsciously touching her face to see if there was anything on it.

"Huh? Oh, nothing. It's just that… that's um, that's a really nice thing to do. Y'know, keeping Damon from hurting people. It's really cool of you." He said, continuing to stare at her.

"I guess. I mean, anybody would do the same in my position." She shrugged.

He shook his head. "No, they wouldn't."

She didn't know what to say so she looked back to Ms. Gellar. "We should still talk to her." Nat said, "Just to be sure she's okay."

"Yeah." Stefan agreed, "You should do it alone. She'd probably be more comfortable since you've known each other longer."

She nodded and walked into the living room, taking a seat next to her teacher.

"Hi, Ms. Gellar."

"Hi, Natalia. You don't have to call me Ms. Gellar outside of school, y'know." She responded with a small smile.

"Okay." Nat laughed nervously. She really didn't know what to say. "So… um, how's life?"

Michelle chuckled. "This is weird, isn't it?"

"Really weird." The Bennett witch nodded.

"I know it's hard to turn off that teacher/student mode thing, but I'd love to have a non-awkward moment with someone tonight, so do you want to try a normal conversation?"

Nattie giggled. "Sure, let's try. Um, how are things with Damon?"

Michelle thought for a second. "Well, not terrible."

Nat's brows furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"Um…" She sighed. Was she really going to confide in a student? That wine was definitely getting to her. "He's dangerous. It's sexy. But he's also really weird. Like that jacket thing earlier tonight? And he's definitely hiding something. Or a few things."

Natalia nodded in understanding. Ms. Gellar continued. "Also, I get the feeling he doesn't actually like me. Or like he wants something more from me? I don't know, it's weird." This kid is a really good listener , she thought. She sighed again. "But he's really hot, I haven't been with anyone as hot as him for a while. It's like once you hit your thirties, the only guys you attract are accountants who are stiff in the hips. Damon's like a breath of fresh air."

Natalia snorted, but felt a huge amount of relief. Damon was treating her teacher fine. Well as fine as an unapologetic douchebag can treat a woman without hurting her mentally or physically. Michelle was in a relationship with Damon of her absolute own volition.

Nat locked eyes with Stefan who was leaning against the doorframe, listening to the whole conversation (somehow Ms. Gellar hadn't noticed him).

Stefan smiled at her and they both reveled in the fact that for now at least, they didn't have anybody to save.

•••

Tyler and Matt were both ecstatic. Tonight was going to be great. They had a vampire on their team, there was no way they could go wrong.

Matt passed the ball to Tyler who passed it to Stefan. They were at practice and Coach Tanner had them doing passing drills (A/N i have no clue if that's a thing but it sounded right so let's go with it) .

Jeremy and Vicki were on the bleachers. Jeremy was sketching and Vicki was watching him from over his shoulder. Jeremy was annoyed to hell and back by the feel of her breath on his neck, but she was absolutely enamored with his drawings and he didn't have the heart to tell her to quit it.

Care, Bonnie, Nat and Elena were cheerleading. Elena was flowing better with the team and they were looking good. Caroline was in a good mood because of that, which could be just as dangerous as when she was in a bad mood. Her squealing could kill an eardrum.

Bonnie was still obsessively writing the numbers '8', '14' and '22'. She and Nat were confused about that. She already knew that Tanner would die, so why was she having premonitions about it? Along with the fascination with those three numbers, Bonnie had a horrible gut feeling about that night.

Neither twin knew what that was about either. It seemed to be too big for Tanner. No offense to him or anything. They supposed they would figure it out that night.

The girls all went for a water break.

Nat eyed Elena's neck. She noticed that Elena wasn't wearing the vervain necklace, even though she remembered Stefan giving it to her in the show right before cheer that day. Elena already took vervain and had been for a while, but Nat thought Stefan would still give her the necklace. For romantic purposes.

She shrugged and got back to cheer.

•••

Cheers echoed throughout the field as excited teenagers raved about. For once they knew they actually had a chance winning a game, so their exhilaration levels were off the roof.

Tanner tried his hardest to dull the crowd, but they wouldn't be tamed.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." Tanner shouted, failing to shut everyone up. "Let's be honest here." He started. Finally, people started to quiet down to listen to the teacher. "In the past, we let other teams come into our town and roll right over us!" Boos from the crowd. "But that is about to change!" They cheered. "We've got some great new talent tonight starting on the offense, and I'm gonna tell you right now, it has been a long time since I have seen a kid like this with hands like these. Let's give it up for Stefan Salvatore!"

The people ignored the weird hand comment in favor of cheering and whooping.

"For those of you who have been waiting to put a check in the win column, I only have one thing to say to you… Your Timberwolves are hungry!"

The rally grew louder and the cheerleaders shook their pom poms and danced to the loud pop music blasting from speakers.

One specific cheerleader in the midst was feeling nauseous. Bonnie Bennett tugged the arm of her twin sister.

"What's up, Bon? You okay?" Natalia asked, stroking the side of Bonnie's face.

"Yeah, the feeling is getting worse, though. I feel sick."

Nat frowned and wrapped her arm around Bonnie. "That's normal for a premonition. But it does mean whatever's giving you the feeling is going to happen soon. Why don't you go back to the school and get some water. I'll try to figure out what it is."

"No, I want to come with you." Bonnie said, using Nat's body to hold herself up.

Natalia sighed. "Are you sure about that? You don't look too good, Bons."

"I'm sure, Nattie, I want to go see what it is."

Nat sighed, knowing to choose her battles. Bonnie could be stubborn. But she was making her sister drink a bunch of water first.

She helped Bonnie walk over to where she remembered Tanner being killed.

They caught the end of Matt and Stefan's conversation. They were just wishing each other good luck.

"Isn't that nice? Stefan joins a team, makes a friend. It's all so, 'rah, rah, go team, yeah!'," Damon said, appearing after Matt left.

The twins looked at each other, knowing where this was going.

"Not tonight, Damon. I'm done with you." Stefan said seriously.

Damon ignored Stefan's remark and continued talking. "Elena's on vervain. Learned that the hard way."

Stefan stayed silent but glared at his brother hatefully.

"Guess I could just seduce her the old-fashioned way. Or I could just...eat her." He pondered with a smirk in Stefan's direction.

"No. You're not gonna hurt her, Damon." Stefan said firmly.

"No?"

"No. Because deep down inside, there's a part of you that feels for her. I was worried that you had no humanity left inside of you, that you may have actually become the monster that you pretend to be."

"Who's pretending?" Damon asked tauntingly.

"Then kill me."

"Well, I'm… I'm tempted."

"No, you're not. You've had lifetimes to do it, and yet, here I am. I'm still alive. And there you are. You're still haunting me. After 145 years. Katherine is dead. And you hate me because you loved her, and you torture me because you still do. And that, my brother, is your humanity." Stefan said, looking at Damon with a sneer.

"Hey, girls! Have you seen Damon?" Ms. Gellar asked as she approached the twins suddenly. Both girls jumped.

"Ms. Gellar, you have to get out of-" Bonnie started but was cut off by Mr. Tanner.

"Salvatore! What the hell? We've got a game to play!" Mr. Tanner said, marching over to Stefan and Damon.

"If that's my humanity… then what's this?" Damon quickly snapped Tanner's neck.

Ms. Gellar let out a gasp but it was muted when Natalia put her hand over the teacher's mouth so she couldn't speak.

Michelle struggled to escape the twins' grasp.

"Ms. Gellar, you have to stay quiet. Come with us." Bonnie guided.

She nodded wordlessly, paralyzed with shock and fear. The twins took her to a spot underneath the bleachers. The students sitting on the bleachers were all being loud, so there was no chance of being overheard.

"D-did you see? He killed William. I knew there was something wrong with him. I- I knew it." Michelle stuttered, gripping Nattie's hand tightly.

The Bennett's exchanged a look. They both knew that they had to keep Ms. Gellar under the bleachers until they could get Stefan to compel her. But if she knew that they knew that Damon killed people, she would run for the hills. So they had to pretend they were just as surprised as she was.

"And are you girls okay? Y-you're only teenagers and you just witnessed a murder. Oh my god, are you okay? How are you not freaking out?" She shrieked.

"Um…" Bonnie started. "I guess I haven't really processed it yet."

Natalia gave her sister a secret wink and smile for her quick thinking.

"Yep. Me neither." Nat said unconvincingly. She really wasn't good at lying. Bonnie gave her a look that said 'go away, you're blowing our cover' . "Um, I'm going to go tell the principal or someone else about what happened. See you."

Natalia sprinted from under the bleachers to find Stefan. She marched into the boys locker room and found him leaning against a wall, looking mortified.

"Stef?" She asked, approaching him slowly.

He looked up at her with tears lining his green eyes. He swallowed. "He killed Tanner."

Nattie sighed. "I know. I'm sorry you had to see him hurt someone." She knew how much guilt it caused him. "But you can't save everyone, Stefan."

"I know." He said quietly. He sniffed.

"Um, Ms. Gellar… she saw Damon kill Mr. Tanner."

Stefan's eyes shot up. "She what?"

"Yeah. Bonnie's with her under the bleachers. Can you, uh, can you compel her?" She felt weird asking since he was clearly in emotional turmoil.

The sadness in his eyes was replaced with concern. "Yeah, of course. Let's go."

They ran back to the bleachers to find Bonnie and Michelle talking. Bonnie was trying really hard to look distressed, but she was very obviously having a hard time with that. Nat had to let out a chuckle.

Bonnie made her way to her sister and Stefan went to go talk with Ms. Gellar.

"Nat." Bonnie whispered.

"Yeah?"

"My bad feeling is gone." The younger twin said as she furrowed her brows.

"When did it go away?" Natalia asked curiously.

"Around when Tanner died. Does that mean whatever I was feeling already happened?"

"It does. Maybe it was Tanner's death?"

Bonnie shook her head. "I don't think so."

Just then, three football players passed behind the bleachers. The twins could make up the numbers on their jerseys. Numbers 8, 14 and 22.

Before either of them could respond to that, they heard Ms. Gellar's voice.

"What are you doing?" She exclaimed as Stefan tried to compel her.

Stefan turned back to the girls, his face etched with confusion. "My compulsion isn't working."

The crowd sitting above them was getting wild. Nobody could find Mr. Tanner so they couldn't start the game. People were angry.

"Try again." Nat ordered as she looked at Ms. Gellar in confusion.

Stefan tried to ignore the loud yells and focus on the woman in front of him. Since he was on animal blood, his compulsion wasn't very strong and required immense focus.

He looked into Ms. Gellar's eyes and began to speak.

"You will forget everything that happened tonight. You meant to go to the football game, but you fell asleep on your couch instead." Stefan tried again.

"What the hell? Are you trying to hypnotize me or something? Your brother's a murderer and you're doing this? Who are you guys?" She tried to get up and run away but all three of the supernaturals present ran to stop her.

"Michelle, please don't be scared." Nat said with her hands out in the universal 'stop' sign.

Natalia and Bonnie were in front of her and Stefan was covering her back.

"That's a lot to ask of me, kid!"

"Everything is going to be okay." Bonnie soothed.

They all knew that they needed to take her back to the boarding house so they could figure out why she wasn't responding to compulsion, but getting her there would be a problem. They didn't want to use force, so the next best thing was a spell.

"Sleep spell?" Bonnie asked.

"Sleep spell." Nat agreed.

"What the hell? What do you mean sleep spe-" Ms. Gellar was cut off by the twins chanting.

" Bene quiescas et dormias. Nihil perdis pacem tuam donec invocamus te. " They said in unison.

Ms. Gellar collapsed and Stefan sped up to catch her. All three of them looked at her face which was pulled into a blissful smile. The spell that they did was meant to put people into a peaceful, deep sleep. When Michelle woke up, she would feel refreshed and happy. It was the least the twins could do for her after they probably traumatized her.

Stefan carried Ms. Gellar in his arms bridal style and the three of them walked to Nattie's car in silence.

phew! this was written very late at night, so if it wasn't the best, that's the excuse. i have way too much schoolwork. so anyways, this is the last opportunity to vote for nat's love interest!

here's what we have so far:

stefan: 11

klaus: 11

elijah: 8

kol: 7

damon: 5

harem: 18

so far harem is in the lead, but i already have little drabbles written for the future of all of these couples and more of them that i was thinking of including (natalia x katherine, natalia x enzo etc.), so i'd be happy for this to go in any direction. it's up to you my loyal voters!

thanks so much for reading!