Five: A Pragmatic Little Monster.
I
The open plan kitchen had once been lovingly built by Damon's grandfather back in the day, a man Damon had never personally met for he had died in an outbreak of small pox before his first birthday. A builder by trade, he had spotted the potential of the plot of land after he had migrated from southern Tuscany with his wife and a young, barely toddling Giuseppe on a boat heading for the new world like so many other immigrants, and bought it for a sum that could hardly buy a good bottle of bourbon now. He'd spent his life and his wealth on this house, this kitchen, this Edwardian detached manor, hoping to turn a house into a home for generations of his family.
There had hardly been any improvement or renovation since those days, it was the one thing Damon had been adamant about when leaving instructions for their descendants on the care of the house. Don't touch the kitchen. And they hadn't.
The kitchen still held the 1920s glamour the last upgrade had given it when Damon had last been in Mystic Falls. The nouveau glass chandeliers, the long square windows, the only new addition being the hot water tank below the sink and the modern appliances dotted around the fringes. The walls were left bare and warm in their red bricks, the woodwork of the island, the heart of the kitchen, a dark lacquer that shone like gloss underneath the yellow lights above, coffee, tea and sugar pots standing like urns by a stove kettle.
The kitchen, despite what you might think, was Damon's favourite room of the house. Not the bedroom or living room or even the shower. He spends hours in there some days, potters about between fridge and stove and pan rack, cooking old dishes from his childhood, though he would deny until he was blue in the face of ever doing such.
Damon Salvatore was not a man struck by nostalgia.
He wasn't.
He knows where ever spoon, knife and stick blender goes.
So… As soon as he entered the hallway, backed by Stefan and Elena from a day out dealing with the latest Salvatore blowback, and he saw the open door to the kitchen with the apron that was meant to be on the back of the door on its hook instead crumpled and discarded on the floor, he knew something was wrong, though he can't put his finger on exactly what.
"Jesus Stefan, do you never clean up after yourself-"
He griped as he snatched the apron up, but by then it was too late. He's in the kitchen, Stefan and Elena have trailed after him, the mouse trap is set, and it's only as he straightened out and glimpsed the island out of view from the door that he thinks-
Huh.
Oh.
No.
Because it's not everyday you come home to find Katherine Pierce slumped and tied down to one of your breakfast bar stools, next to a similarly bound Mason Lockwood, though the latter was clearly unconscious.
She was in bad shape, Damon could see as Katherine peered up and through the curtain of her hair, split lipped and her neck… Neck torn asunder as if some wolf had tried to give her a hickey, the remnants of her spilt blood soaking into the front of her shirt.
She met his eye across the way and said one thing.
"Run."
Of course, that came too late too, because there was a creak, a screech, and the distinctive sound of a door lock catching in its frame. Damon turned, Stefan turned, Elena panicked.
A girl stood behind the kitchen door, grinning. Small, pale, with a leather jacket, jeans and boots and a crop of righteous black hair-
And a face all too familiar, mouth smeared in Katherine's blood.
"Ah, just in time for the family dinner."
That was about when the room flashed red.
II
Damon tugged on his bindings, wiggling on his own stool pushed up against the island, but whatever was holding him down it was more than simple rope.
Magic, he suspected.
Very strong magic.
"How?"
Elena asked, because of course it would be Elena to have her curiosity get the better of her in a life-or-death situation, from Damon's right, Stefan on his left, opposite a scowling Katherine and a still unconscious Mason.
The girl was wondering around the kitchen, idly opening draws, fiddling with the knives almost in silent threat before shutting it again and moving to the next shiny hidey hole drawing her attention.
"How?"
She parroted back with a cocked brow and a sardonic glance over her shoulder.
"Do you mean how can I do magic while, by I'm sure the blood still on my face that gives my vampiric nature away?"
She turned to the sugar pot, idly plucking up the lid to peer inside, even going as far to dip a finger in and suck the sugar off the tip.
"Or do you mean how am I here? How did I get the jump on you? How-"
Her tone sank down, chipping like a shard of glass as she turned to Damon who promptly ceased his wiggling, waving at him with the lid of the sugar pot.
"How do I look like him?"
Damon didn't think he needed enhanced hearing to catch Elena's gulp on a dry throat.
"All of it?"
Elena queried shakily, and the girl chuckled dryly, brittle like autumn leaves as she dashed the lid back down with a clack of expensive porcelain, turning her green-keen interest to the cupboards above, pilfering through their spice rack.
"Katherine, do you want to share with the class?"
Katherine stayed stonily silent, and after the draw of the clock ticked on just a little too long, the girl turned anew, glaring.
"Or I could go for another snack-"
"Marianna Lockwood."
Katherine cut in, croaking, wincing as the healing skin of her throat pulled tight. From beside him, Damon felt Stefan stiffen.
"The woman-"
Stefan began, though seemingly, he couldn't finish. Katherine had no such reservations, glaring hotly over to him as she did what the youngest Salvatore couldn't.
"Yeah, the woman Damon fed his blood to for months, you know… The one you bit so hard her head came clean off in the early nineteenth century? Her."
Damon shook his head, trying to reach behind himself to his bound wrists to maybe slip a rope, but the magic held fast and hard, and by the time he caught the amused eye of the girl across the kitchen, he knew the game of escape was over before it had really begun.
"How does she have anything to do with-"
"She was pregnant."
The girl quipped far too lightly for the topic of discussion, with a careless cavalier burn Damon was all too intimate with, spinning from the cupboard, popping the lid of some fresh mint to take a sniff.
"First trimester when you went ahead and started pumping vampire blood into her. My father… One of my fathers was what we call a Siphon."
Sensing the silent room for the confusion blossoming in the air, the girl rolled her eyes and screwed the lid back on to the herb pot.
"Siphons are magically inclined people who have no magical core themselves but the ability to absorb magic and use it. You fed my mother vampire blood. Magical blood. Stefan here knocked her head off… Come on, people… Do I really have to spell everything out for you?"
From the corner of his eye, Damon watched Elena's face wash white and pale, round like the moon rising outside the kitchen window.
"Oh god… Oh-"
The girl grinned and clapped.
"Thing Two has got it."
Slowly, sluggishly, as if his thoughts were running through honey and river sludge, the pieces fell together for Damon too, just as Stefan, who must have come to the same conclusion as him, shook his head violently.
"She couldn't have been far along-… There was no bump…. I couldn't smell-"
The girl slammed the cupboard shut behind her, a loud thud that made Elena jump in her seat. That seemed to amuse her too.
Vicious little thing.
"She was far along enough that my siphoning abilities kicked in and did the only thing that would ensure my survival. It took what it needed. Vampire's life-giving sustainability, the DNA I needed to finish gestating, and would you look at that, a very pretty face."
One second she was across the room, and the next she was there, at the corner of the island beside Stefan, leaning over in a blink and a wink and glower.
"I had to claw my way out of my mother's rotting womb in her own grave because of what you and your fuckin' brother did for no other reason than you lot wanted to have a good time. The Lockwoods handed me off to be a weapon. A man wants to have a laugh, and someone it's always the women who pays the price for the joke. Not this time."
She inched closer, so close her nose nearly touched Stefan's.
"You killed my mother. You're the reason I am what I am-"
There's a jump in the muscle of her unexpectedly clenched jaw, the bite back of unspoken words. Suddenly she drew back with a scoff and a jeer that curled her lip over her teeth, flashing white in the low light.
"Be thankful I'm not currently ripping your head off."
III
"You're my… You have…"
Damon couldn't bring himself to say it, can't really form the full thought in his head, it seems so outlandish, bizarre, he's a vampire, his body his dead, he can't give life only take it-
It can't be possible, and yet the truth is standing right there, cock-sure against the kitchen island, rolling her green eyes at him.
"Don't worry Don Juan, I'm not here for child support payments if that's what has got you looking like you're seconds from passing out. I couldn't care less what happens to you lot or the Lockwoods or the Parkers or anyone else in this bumfuck town."
"Then why are you here?"
Elena pushed on because she never knew when to stop.
"I mean… Yes, you… They… They had a hand in your… birth, Stefan killed your mother, and Damon made… Gave… Created you, but… What about the Lockwoods? You said they… Handed you off? Why aren't you in their kitchen? Shouldn't you be more angry at them for something they knowingly did against two who didn't?"
The girl hesitated, paused, and then laughed. Loud, long, and not very kindly.
"Are you for real?"
She demanded from an abruptly shrinking Elena.
"I don't know about you-"
The girl sniped back harshly, British accent thick with a twang of something salty and Celtic.
"But I have more emotional depth than a fuckin' teaspoon. News flash for the class, you can feel more than one emotion at the time aimed at different people. I can equally hate the Lockwoods as I can despise these Salvatore bastards. Fuck me, I didn't think I needed to explain the basics of the human condition, but here we go. People are complicated, emotions are complicated, and people can and do feel multiple things at once. Some good, some bad, and some downright ugly."
The girl chuckled, tilting her head in question to Elena.
"You've lived a very privileged life, ain't ya?"
This time, Elena did scowl, but before she could snap back, dig themselves further into a pit, Damon intervened.
"Then that's why you're here? Off us and then move onto the Lockwoods to get… What? Revenge?"
The girl sighed, long and low and suffering, scrubbing a tired hand over her green eyes.
"I really am dealing with idiots."
She grumbled.
"I am here because you made me this way, and now I can't sit down for Sunday brunch with my equally not-so-human friends without wanting to crack one open like a cold beer. I've eaten people who only wanted to help me. I've drained people who had lives, homes, fuckin' families. You made me."
Bracing herself on the kitchen island, elbows locked and head low like a crouching tiger just before the finishing leap, gaze steady and locked on Damon, she held steady, stony.
"Neither of us can like it or not, wish it was somehow different, Merlin knows I do, but that's it. You made me. Now… Now you're going to help me."
Stefan jumped the rope first.
"You've only recently started feeding."
"Bingo."
The girl quipped, though there was no accompanying smile, just a dark, hard stare.
"I'm relatively new to this whole… Vampire thing due to some… Wibbly-wobbly time stuff and my second death a couple of years ago that re-kickstarted my vampirism back into gear, and seen as you two are the cause of my recent unlife, I'm making myself your problem."
IV
"You want us to teach you the ropes, how to control yourself so you don't feed on the impulse to do so."
Kicking away from the island and tugging on the hem of her leather jacket, a spattering of dark text on the inside of her wrist flashing for a moment, the girl nodded.
Elena shook her head, almost as if she was trying to shake out her own thoughts from her ears.
"Then why not just find some vampire-"
"Oh, yeah, right-"
The girl interrupted with a roll of her shoulders, as if she were trying to physically shudder off her irritation.
"Let me just pop over to the midnight Vampire's billiards club and hand out resumes to see if one will take me on as an underling. Why didn't I think of that?"
A shot, a glare, a flash of scorching green.
"This town might be a hot-bed for the supernatural, but Vampires aren't so easy to stumble across willy-nilly in the wild. Honestly, if you have nothing smart to say, don't fuckin' speak. I know that might mean you don't ever natter again, but you'd be doing us all a favour, clearly."
Katherine's snort of a chuckle was aborted as the girl's attention swiftly swung towards her as deadly as an axe throw.
"And if I was you I wouldn't laugh either, given where you're sitting. You two share more than your lovely faces, eh? You share a lack of brain cells too. I'm still not sure which one of you takes the cake for idiocy. You two or the Salvatores. Must be something in the town water supply around here."
"And why is Katherine here if you're not planning to kill us or torture us?"
Stefan hazarded.
"Because-"
The girl edged with a look Katherine couldn't meet.
"Someone thought they could lure me to this town, pull on my heartstrings, and then aim me at you two to do the dirty work for her. Not a very clever move, was it, Katherine? Believing you could manipulate me. Get me worked up over the Salvatore's involvement in my subsequent condition, aim me their way, and watch me pop while you get to sip sangria and keep your hands clean."
The girl shook her head slowly, misgiven, gaze slinking to the ceiling, the heavens, as if she was searching for respite.
"I've had it with people who think they can move me like a chess piece on their own board. No thanks. Been there, done that, got the war medal. She's here as a… Good faith gift. She wanted me to kill you two you know, for who knows what, I don't know, but here she is, and here you two are, still alive. You're welcome, by the way. Without me you wouldn't have even known she was in town."
Damon, finally, landed on one primary emotion in the whirlwind rattling his skull. Suspicion.
"And you expect us to believe this is a sign of no bad blood between us now?"
The girl refused to meet his eye, and maybe that was worse than if she'd glared at him.
"Oh no. I want to tear your heads off and leave your corpses for a child to find like you did my mother… But I'm also a pragmatic little monster. I know when and where to choose my battles. I know how to put my needs above my wants. I can't-"
She stumbled here, for the first time, the only time, a falter of the tongue that gave her sincerity away as it stripped off the sarcasm she wore like armour.
"I can't control myself. I… I've hurt people. I need help."
And as quick as it came, this brutal, fragile, tragic sort of honesty, it was gone just as quickly, shrouded back in that prickly, thorny exterior that Damon personally knew hid a very soft, gooey centre.
Fucking hell, she really was his-
"And seen as you are inadvertently my dear, dead, dad, who better to teach me to play ball with the big boys, eh? I'd hurry up on accepting or refusing the deal though, because I'm getting really thirsty again and you lot smell quite… Quenching."
V
"Let us think it over and-"
Damon swiftly cut in, stomping over Stefan's attempt to buy time, because that's what he'd been trying to do. Buy time to think of a way to get out.
"I'll do it."
"Damon-"
Stefan broke, face snapping towards his brother, but Damon wasn't looking at him, no, he was looking dead ahead, towards the girl with the green eyes and the black hair and the devil-may-care carefully crafted attitude only ever made from years of being kicked down and thrown out.
Unbearably, he knows this kid. Knows the sarcasm that drips from her tongue is poison that hides the hurt lingering below. Knows the meticulously fashioned nonchalance she straps tightly to her face masks the little child inside who does care a whole lot. Knows, with a heavy ache in his chest, the reason why one normally goes through such lengths for something easily asked for is due less to inherent hostility than the acquaintance of getting even the most basic of human rights denied.
He knows because it's fucking clear as day, standing before him, face to face, eye to eye, he's a pragmatic not-so-little monster too.
"I'll do it."
He repeated, flinty and cool, leaving no room in his voice for arguments to be had. The girl looks at him, looks and locks, and Damon doesn't even know her name, wonders if she knew his, and she appeared confused momentarily, suspicious too, seconds away from demanding to know what his game was, having, like Damon would have in her shoes, what she wanted handed over relatively easily.
She, nevertheless, settled on a tilted sort of regard, the kind you'd wear if an alligator rolled onto its belly for you.
"You'll do it… Just like that?"
Damon doesn't hesitate, and perhaps it is the smartest thing he's ever done.
"Just like that."
"Huh."
The girl tuts, regarding the rest of the room, seeming a little lost, a steam train with their coal snatched from the fire in their belly.
"I thought I'd at least have to threaten one amputation."
She shrugged, but Damon doesn't buy the threat she bats at them, knows too well it's trying to conceal the slip she'd made, the lost feeling of someone actually agreeing to help without injury or harm.
How alien it feels to actually get what you want for once without too much of an uphill battle.
With a sloppy pat of the table, Damon felt a weight lifted from him, could twist and move on his stool more freely, the magic evaporated like steam in a shower. Immediately, Stefan rubbed at his wrists, Mason slumped against the table, Elena somehow shrank further into her seat.
"Good talk."
She marched for the kitchen door, pausing only momentarily by the corner of the island opposite Damon, hand still skimming the edge of the polished wood before she squinted his way but, again, didn't meet his eye.
"Marianna Lockwood was a good person."
"I know."
Damon gave softly, quietly, perhaps as tragically honest as she'd been earlier.
"She didn't deserve what you and your brother did."
"I know."
The hand slipped from the table; the familiar face turned away.
"My name is Heather... By the way."
And then she was strolling for the kitchen door, the one that led out back, out into the setting night, yanking it open and letting the breeze roll in with her grin.
"I'm staying at the Fell's hotel off Fifth. Come find me in the morning if I'm not too hungover. See you around Pops."
The door swung shut behind her. Damon turned to his brother.
VI
"Well, that went better than-"
Damon was interrupted by Katherine lurching from her stool, unsteady on her feet. The girl-
Heather, must have had quite a drink from her.
"We have to go. Now. Go and never come back."
Damon slunk from his chair, rolling his neck, blocking her exit from either door.
"You're not going anywhere-"
"Didn't you see it?!"
Katherine demanded with a sort of hysteria Damon had never heard from the heartless vampire before. A panic that made him falter, made Stefan frown, given a not so difficult feat, but the fear even caught Elena's attention.
"The soulmark on her arm! The writing on her arm! The one that said We'll be there soon. Wait for us."
"She had a soulmark?"
Elena questioned cautiously. It wasn't everyday you ran into someone with a soulmark, though they weren't so rare that they were unheard of. Damon himself had one, given that it hadn't answered him in a few decades-
"I know that handwriting!"
Katherine hissed, already tugging a woozy Mason to his feet to stand beside her. Most likely in preparation of using him as a human shield if need be. Damon wouldn't put it past her.
"That was Elijah Mikaelsons!"
Stefan immediately drew back, scoffing.
"The Mikaelsons are a myth-"
"They're not a myth."
Katherine swore, eerily dull, uncannily strained. A thin gossamer thread pulled too tight on both ends.
"I've met them, and if we stay here and I'm right, we're all dead."
VII
Heather Potter toed off her boots, emptied the mini bar of all comically small sized bottles of hard liquor she could get her dirty little hands on, fell onto her borrowed bed, and began the arduous task of trying to outburn the scorching thirst in her throat.
Sitting around a table full of supernatural beings hadn't exactly been easy on her heightened appetite. The alcohol wouldn't affect her, not even give her a nice little buzz to ease the strain of the day she'd had, but it might get the swirling thoughts out her head, the bitter anger in her chest, the one that mingled with the orphan child hurt she thought she'd grown out of long ago, and the burn in her throat down to appropriate levels.
She was on her third little bottle of vodka when the flash of heat came to the inside of her left arm. She glanced down at it on instinct, Sirius's old leather jacket flung over the door handle of her hotel room, leaving behind nothing but pale skin peeking out of a white t shirt.
It was not words this time. Not a poem, or a flower, or even an egg. It was a hastily but somehow still beautiful ink sketch of a sign. A little breakfast board with a jolly plate of toast and sausage in the corner, with a little missive at the bottom telling a customer to ask for the Chef Louis special.
Heather's gut sank like a canon ball in the ocean.
She'd seen that sign only this morning… Perched in the window of the Mystic Grill. Right before her eyes, a little note began appearing underneath, over the tender flesh of her wrist, not at all like the handwriting of before, the one with the Norwegian poems or the Swedish folk myths. It was fatter, curlier, slanted left instead of right.
Fancy a bite to eat, love?
"Oh fuck me."
Next Chapter: Myths come to life and to town, and against all her better judgement, Heather goes for a late-night breakfast…
A.N: Surprise! I am still alive and still writing lol. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and if you can, don't forget to drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all again soon. Until then, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21