Over the next couple of hours there were the bland questions such as what's your favourite song? And the great questions such as when did they find out about the Fandom?
All eyes turned to Damon. "About four years ago actually. I got bored and googled myself." The ballroom erupted into chuckles. "So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself mentioned on numerous message boards and websites."
"Next question," said Meredith quickly. "To all of us. Have we read the books and have they changed our opinions of each other?"
"That's a really good question. Whos' question is this?" asked Stefan, Jess put her hand up. "Well we've all read the books. I wouldn't say my opinion of Elena has changed, but I understand what she did and why she did it now. I'd say that in regards to Damon," he shot his brother a smirk, "reading the books made me realise that we might not be as close as some siblings are, but my brother will always have my back when I really need him and that I need to trust him- occasionally."
"Actually, it changed my opinion of Damon, Matt and Bonnie as well," said Meredith. "Even after Stefan told us what happened in the tomb I still didn't trust Damon, I couldn't forgive and forget. I want to apologise for not trusting you and to say that you have my respect and my trust."
"I have nothing more to add." Damon obviously didn't fancy sharing any heartfelt confessions or opinions, which was fine by Jess, she hadn't meant it like that at all.
Hollys' question was were there any myths or legends about vampires that were so ridiculous it made them laugh? "In Europe, one tradition has it that by placing millet, sand or poppy seeds in a grave, it will keep the vampire occupied all night as they can't resist counting it. Personally I can think of nothing more tedious," Damon had grinned.
"Not so much folklore or mythology but Stephanie Meyer making her vampires sparkle in the daylight. It offends me," said Stefan.
"It offends him, because I gave him an upper body massage with one of those glittery massage bars from Lush once," laughed Elena.
"I will never forgive you for that, it took a very long time to get all the glitter off" If Stefan was trying to look angry at Elena, he failed miserably. There were excited whispers in the audience, ideas for crossover fanfiction were being hatched at that very moment and Lush were going to be in for a rush on that particular item. Now everyone's question was, what colour?
Mel's question was aimed at everyone, if they could have lived in any period of time, what would it be and why? Matt said he would have loved to live in the sixties or seventies because he loved the music and the fashion, Bonnie wanted to be an early Nineteenth century peasant woman living in the country so she could practice herbalism. Meredith didn't have one, Elena and Stefan wanted to stay in the modern age. Damon said he quite liked the seventeenth century as it was so much fun with theatres and prominent actresses "and such great artists like Gringling Gibbons and Rembrandt." Jess was surprised at the answer and noticed that Stefan and Elena were also giving him funny looks as well. She was sure that by the end of the day she'd know what game he was playing and if it was what she was thinking she'd gladly play too.
The girl Mel had been chatting up didn't get the chance to ask her Quoth question. Stefan said he wasn't sure what career he would want, probably a researcher of some sort. Mel smirked when the girl looked disappointed and Damon shot her down in flames when he said he wouldn't change his career.
Once in their groups Holly and Jess voted for each other, Jess won from her group, Mel was in a different group and won from hers. They were up against a girl who wanted to know who had the most personal growth because of what had happened (the humans voted for Elena, Stefan and Damon stayed out of it) and a boy who wanted to know if Bonnie could use her magic for one thing, anything at all, what would it be? (make Stefan human again).
The winners in each group were told to come on stage, Jess was third in line and stood next to Mel.
"Okay, you can only vote once so I need a display of hands for each person" Stefan called out. He went along the line, asking people to vote. He knew everyones' name and people stuck their hands up in the air until he announced a tie between Jess and the boy called Dan. He asked Dan what he'd use the money for, Dan said he wanted to put the money towards a new laptop as his old one was broken. He wasn't shy, and told Stefan that the new laptop had more memory and it had Word on it as well so he could write as he wanted to be an author, although he wanted to write Sci-fi books. Jess on the other hand was embarrassed about being up on stage, she felt as though she was having far too much attention from Stefan and Damon and if people found out they'd be upset and call her a cheat. "So Jess, if you won the money, what would you use it for?"
"A months' membership to The London Library, it will help with my history degree."
The pair of them faced the audience and everyone voted again. It was clear that the audience liked Dans' answer better, so Jess turned to him and offered her congratulations before she hurried off stage and back to her friends. Then it was lunchtime and people were commiserating with her and congratulating Dan, the girls went straight upstairs to get their purses and headed out. They grabbed a takeaway and headed to the park where they sat on the grass in the sun.
"Damon fancies you" said Holly the minute they sat down.
"What?! How'd you work that one out?" Jess was getting tired and was starving hungry, she didn't see how Holly was connecting the dots.
"The whole seventeenth century thing. When you were on stage, one of the girls doing history declared that she was going to have to gem up on Charles the second."
"That doesn't mean he fancies me. It could just be that he actually likes that era, I mean it was a time of people wanting to be more sophisticated while telling dirty jokes on stage, or he's winding them up," Jess shrugged as she tucked into her fillet burger.
Holly was busy gnawing on a chicken thigh so Mel spoke up. "Don't you want to date Damon? If you don't I will!"
"I never said I wouldn't be willing to give it a go and see what happens."
The girls started trying to plan how to get her close to Damon, "you need to sit next to him in the group session and wear a killer dress tonight." She changed the subject and they exchanged email addresses and telephone numbers. Holly and Jess agreed to arrange to meet up again and to stay in touch with Mel.
