Eight:
The End Times
Mystic Falls, Virginia, Salvatore Boarding House
"Why didn't you say or do anything? She stood right there, Damon, and you just stared!"
Damon didn't look at Stefan, didn't even deign to peer in his general vicinity, slack and bent in his chair in the Salvatore manor, staring dead ahead into the fire of the hearth, bottle of bourbon in hand, tumbler, and any sense of decorum, abandoned as he swigged deep from the bottle.
"What was I supposed to say? Oh, hi All-Blood, I'm dad?"
Finally, Damon met Stefan's eye, the first time all night and morning since they had arrived back home, and he looked-
Tired and terribly lost.
"I… I panicked, alright. She looked… You could see… Scars and-… What-"
Another bottomless swig accompanied a deep aching grimace.
"Oh, Damon."
Stefan drew away from the bookcase across the spacious room, steps thudding on the floorboards as he made a slow pace to the chair besides Damon's, compressing himself down into the soft, warm-worn leather. This close he could see the scowl on Damon's face, a dark and heavy thing, pinched tight in the middle.
"And then she just went… Puff. Literally. She just disappeared in a puff. How am I meant to track down something that disappears in a haze of black smoke? And what am I meant to do if I eventually did, Stefan? What am I meant to say, huh? Surprise?"
Stefan rolled his eyes.
"Hello, would be a good start-"
And cut himself off swiftly at the bright-eyed glare shot his way from Damon's direction. In the end, Stefan settled for a, perhaps, equally as hopeless shrug.
"I don't know, Damon… But she is family. She's your daughter-"
The bottle clinked as it was dashed onto the low riding coffee table before them.
"You think I don't already know that? We all saw her… Maybe… Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe it's best for everyone, for her, if-"
Stefan shook his head forcefully.
"Oh no. No you don't. You're not doing this to me, Damon. Or her."
"What do you mean? I'm not doing anything-"
"Exactly!"
Stefan barked, standing up in a flash, peering bottomlessly down at Damon.
"When the going gets tough, Damon gets going-"
Damon too, ultimately stood, scowl a furious and unforgiving creature upon his face.
"I don't run from a fight-"
"Physically? With fist and fangs? No. You're all too happy to take part in those, but as soon as a situation begins to show signs of even an ounce of emotional discomfort you hightail it out of there. You've done it with me, you've done it with Katherine, you've done it with-"
Now it was Damon's turn to roll his eyes.
"Oh, here we go. Another lecture from Saint Stefano. Come on then, tell me my sins for this month-"
"You're not a monster!"
Damon stalled, halted right where he stood in front of his chair, pale eyes unblinking. Stefan broke, shoulders drooping, voice dropping.
"You're not a monster… You may act like it, and sometimes, you make it so, so hard for me or anyone to remember that, but you're not a monster. Not completely. Maim and snark and drink your way through this world as much as you want, but I know deep in there, somewhere in that black pit you call a heart, you have some shred of humanity left, the brother I remember once is still in there someplace. Bury him down as much as you want, but I can still see him."
Stefan sighed, running, quickly, out of steam.
"So, no, Damon, I'm not letting you do this because I see it for what it really is. A poor attempt at trying to protect your daughter because as much bravado as you try to smother yourself in so no one else sees deep down you detest yourself. You don't see yourself worthy of love or family or happiness, and so you try to destroy every opportunity of it that comes your way. Not. This. Time."
Damon snatched the bottle of bourbon up, and for a moment, with the firelight glinting off the blue expanse of his cold eyes, Stefan thought he was going to smash the belly on the table's end, pounce at him with the shard of the tapered neck, and jab it into his carotid artery.
The black-haired Vampire didn't, however, do any of those things. Anew, he took a vicious gulp, and again, he took his seat to stare off into the licking flames of the fire.
"I don't know what to do, Stefan."
It was, perhaps, the most honest few words he had heard from Damon in-
In centuries.
And maybe, just maybe, that's what makes them hit so hard, sting just that bit deeper, burrow down deep into Stefan's skin and linger there in the dark thrum of his blood.
Stefan sluggishly reclaimed his own seat.
"Neither do I… But I know that was your daughter, the daughter of my best friend, my niece-… And she's somewhere out there right now with the Mikaelsons possibly plotting her demise. Klaus won't like not being the big boy in the sand box anymore. He'll want the competition gone."
The logs in the fire crackled, spat and sizzled as they were consumed from wood to ash, and yet, incredibly, Damon's voice was somehow still softer than that material metamorphosis.
"Then we find her and bring her home and… And go from there. Klaus can go get fucked."
The moment was, inevitably when you lived in Mystic Falls, shattered by the sharp sound of rapping against the front door in a bout of three.
Stefan exhaled profoundly.
"That's likely Elena. I told her to stay at home and to keep the doors locked should Klaus or his family be on the prowl for retribution for last night."
Damon scoffed.
"And you expected her to listen?"
No, perhaps not, but Stefan had expected her to show some decency. After what she had done, her and Caroline and Bonnie, knowing what they had known-
He's not angry at Caroline. Annoyed? A little, but she had no stakes in the game last night, no family to think of but her own survival. In her shoes, Stefan would have sided with the Mikaelsons too.
But Elena and Bonnie?
They had known, and Bonnie was young and arrogant in a way only youth could be, so sure of herself and the power of her own magic, how could she not be convinced the night would go her way, and Elena, she had-
Elena loves him, and she had still chosen to lie to him, again, manipulate him just as Katherine once had, to get her own way and it makes Stefan feel nauseous, that Elena, in any shape or form, could act or be like Katherine, and-
Stefan needed time. Time to come to grips with all that went down yesterday, the revelations and the surprises and the betrayals, the part Elena played in it, all of it. He needed time to think away from her defences to see it her way. Because she would have excuses. Little reasons for doing what she did, but Stefan had his own, and the two… In this, Stefan, for once, couldn't break. There was no midway meeting point to compromise.
This time, Elena would have to come see it his way or…
Or.
"Ignore it. She'll go away soon. Hopefully back home."
Damon cocked a brow high.
"Stefan ignoring Elena when she calls upon him? Wow… We really are living in the end times, aren't we?"
Another stretch of knocking came echoing down the hall into the drawing room.
"Is Bonnie…"
Damon didn't finish the question, but he didn't really need to. Stefan shook his head.
"After we got her out of that tree, I saw her, Elena and Caroline home after the Mikaelsons had rushed off to… Likely plan their next move with the All-Blood now awake and walking the streets. I brought Bonnie her mother's… Body. Abigail's probably awake by now and transitioning… Bonnie didn't speak to me, but she's alive and safe from the Mikaelson's reach at home."
Damon shook his head.
"I'm not sorry for what I did, and if Bonnie wants to try and melt by brain for it, then fair enough, but I'm not sorry. It was the only way to get that sarcophagus open. I'd do it again if I had to."
Stefan… Stefan smiled because, for once, this little moment, he was on the same page as Damon.
Maybe these were the end times after all.
"So would I. Maybe we'll all just have to learn to live with that."
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Damon took one last swig from his half-empty bottle.
"You'd think she'd either give up by now or just open the door and walk in."
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang-
Stefan stood up, rolling his jaw, marching for the hallway with hard fastened joints.
"I'll see what she wants and then see her off. I'm not in the mood for this."
From behind his back, he heard Damon chuckle.
"The end times, indeed."
Mystic Falls, Virginia, Salvatore Boarding House
Stefan huffed as he sped towards the front door, to the incessant pounding on the lacquered wood, speaking already as he reached for the handle.
"I told you to give us some time, Elena. What you did was-"
The door swung open, and no Elena Gilbert stood on the entrance steps. Another girl did instead, pale skinned, black hair a riotous mess upon her head, green eyes bright in the morning light, and a toothy grin on her face.
"Ah, there you are! Do you know how many doors I've had to knock in this neighbourhood? My sense of smell is good, but apparently you fuckers get around everywhere here, and stink this place up to high heaven. You're worse than tween boys with Axe body-spray."
The All-Blood, Stefan's niece, barged right on passed him, into the hall, without so much as an invitation or a gesture to come inside, holding up an empty bottle, wiggling it in the air.
"Don't suppose you have any liquor here? I ran out about two streets away and I am crashing."
Stefan stood there, stuck in some sort of granite like static that kept his feet rooted to the ground, even as the All-Blood swivelled on her heel, eyeing him from head to toe in a protracted sweep, one dark brow tilted high upon a scarred forehead.
"Left or right then?"
"What-"
"Never mind."
She sniffed and abandoned her own empty bottle on the side table by the door in the corridor, and then grinned, white teeth flashing in a pretty row.
"Ah, bourbon. Good choice… this way."
She whirled again, and took off down the hall towards the drawing room. Stefan ultimately found his limbs back under his control after her curls vanished around the bend of the foyer, and took off after her. By the time he caught up, she was already trudging across the drawing room in her combat boots, Damon up and blinking wide-eyed at her by his chair, All-Blood heading right for-
Right for the liquor cabinet by the fire.
She swung the glass doors open, fingers skimming bottles.
"Jackpot. Lets see… 1618… 1776… 1841… 1980-… Oh, yeah. That one."
She yanked a bottle out from the lower shelves, were Damon stored the newer ages, turned, and flicked the cap right off, the metal lid bouncing along the carpeted rug, downing half the bottle in three big guzzles. When she finally tore herself away from the bottle, she hissed between clenched teeth.
"That hits the spot. Now, where was I?"
She glanced up and idly pointed the neck of the bottle in Stefan's direction, bourbon sloshing up the side.
"You. If I am not mistaken, which of course I'm not, you said your name was Stefan Salvatore before I apparated away, yes? Spelled S-A-L-V-A-T-O-R-E?"
Stefan nodded, briefly tongue tied, swept along in a sudden, unexpected gust of-
Gust of this girl, as if she was a force of nature, a law of gravity that couldn't be stopped or outmanoeuvred or fully realized without something being dropped on your head.
"Uh, yes, that's how you spell it-"
The All-Blood nodded, as if she was expecting just that answer, and strolled over to the chair Stefan had only recently vacated, plopping down, bobbing on the springs, boots kicked up and legs striking over the mahogany table as she downed another mouthful of bourbon.
"Right. 'Course it is-… Oh, don't look at me like that, all open-mouthed and wonderstruck. I'm not going to eat you."
She waggled the bourbon, voice hurtling to a conspiratorially low whisper begged from an impish grin.
"That's what the alcohol's for. Takes a fleeting bite out of the rather ravenous thirst I've woken up with."
Another shrug, another swig.
"Now, I thought that was a bit strange, you know? Salvatore… Never ran into one of them in the past, and I've ran into a lot of things. Not really a common name, is it? I've actually only heard it once before. It got me thinking, I know, dangerous."
She winked, a flicker of brilliant green eye twinkling almost yellow in the fire light.
"But it did. What are the chances, I thought. I get kidnapped, wedged into a coffin under involuntary sleep, ten years of my life stolen in a blink, and when I wake up, low and behold, there's a Salvatore… The same fuckin' name on my adoption papers."
The smile faded, sloshed off like blood in the rain, and abruptly her eyes were a little too bright, a little too burning, a little too brutal.
"Want to explain that one to me?"
Stefan opened his mouth-
The All-Blood tutted.
"And remember, I might not have come here to eat you but I bloody well will if you try and bullshit me right now, so choose your next words carefully, Vamp, or they might just be your last, and it would be a shame to have aaaaaah! written forever on your gravestone."
Stefan's mouth snapped shut, opened again, and-
And Damon's voice came out, full, packed, overflowing.
"I'm guessing you have another name on those adoption papers of yours. Mine."
Almost as if she had overlooked there was another person in the room entirely, the All-Bloods attention tore towards Damon like a bolt from a bow, or, perhaps, by the way the muscle in her jaw jumped, seeing Damon-
Damon with his black hair and his pale skin and his bright eyes, she might not have wanted to look at him. She might have known she would see something there, in the plains of his face-
Something she couldn't make a mockery out of. Something once seen that could not be unseen.
For a long while, Stefan watched as the two simply stared at each other, a pin and a lock and a latch that caught each other exactly where they were and held them there, at opposite sides of a table, one down, one up, both-
Both so agonizingly the same, Stefan could unexpectedly see. In more ways than one, Stefan thought, in further aspects than skin deep.
The All-Blood, inevitably, was the one to break the instant.
"Ah, Lucas Salvatore, is it?"
Damon shook his head, black hair fluttering.
"We both know that's not the name on those papers."
A trick, a smart trick really. Shoot out the wrong name, and if Damon had fell for it, agreed his name was Lucas, the All-Blood had a clue that they were lying to her, after something, playing a game.
But there was no game here to be played.
"Damon. My name is Damon Salvatore."
Crack.
The bottle of bourbon in the All-Blood's hands exploded beneath a rapidly clenching grip, glass and amber water bursting. She didn't so much as blink as the bottle gave way, as her side became doused in bourbon, as the glass showered to the floor.
She held Damon's gaze across the table, no grin, no quip, no cocked brow.
"You know who I am."
It wasn't a question from Damon, a simple fact instead.
You know who I am.
You know what that name means.
You've seen it before and know the history it binds.
Slowly, deliberately, the All-Blood dusted her hand off, rubbing her fingers, sifting off glass as if it were glitter.
"I know you're a Vampire standing before me, and by the smell of you, you're at least… a century and a half old. I was born in the eighties, and I know Vampires can't have kids. It's impossible. So unless you have one hell of a skin care routine and you're lying to me, it's not possible."
Damon chuckled deep in his chest.
"Yeah, well, so was Lexie of the undead variety, and yet here you are, impossibly existing."
"Damon-"
Stefan tried to edge in softly, but the All-Blood snarled.
"So this is the story you're going with? My parents are Vampires and I shouldn't exist… If you're going to come up with a lie, at least make it plausible-"
"This isn't a story. It's the truth-"
"Excuse me if I find it a bit hard to believe I was somehow borne from walking, talking corpses-"
"Yeah, well, you better start believing because apparently that's what's happened, and if you haven't looked in the mirror lately you might have missed the fact that you're a bit Vampiric yourself-"
"And? You two had a spawn of death and you just… What? Thought fuck it, we've created something messed-up, let's go dump it in the woods and it can be someone else's problem-"
"What woods? I didn't dump you in any woods! I didn't know you existed until yesterday!"
That hindered the All-Blood and her temper, stalled Damon's own too, and in the minute it took for her to gain her bearings, for Damon to sigh heavily, Stefan intervened.
"Maybe we should all just sit down and try to talk like rational adults?"
It was a tense moment, stiff and taut, a choice balanced on the edge of a serrated knife before, in the end, the All-Blood nodded. Slowly, Damon took his own chair back, and Stefan slipped onto the adjoining couch. Stefan brokered into the silence.
"Perhaps if the All-Blood tells us-"
"Hemlock."
The All-Blood snapped.
"My name is fuckin' Hemlock Potter. I don't know what a All-Blood is, but I ain't it, Chief."
She… She really didn't know-
Stefan shook his head.
Later.
First things first, trying to convince her they weren't lying.
"I don't know where to begin."
The All-Blood-
Hemlock, Hemlock with her chaotic curls and her keen eyes, squinted Stefan's way, face immutable, rocky, a distant gravelly shore to a far-off island that would wreck any boat that tried to rest in its shallows.
"Maybe the fuckin' beginning would help sort this mess out, yeah?"
Damon was the one to respond, tone small and low-slung.
"It was 1864 when our home was visited by a woman called Katherine Pierce…"
Mystic Falls, Virginia, Salvatore Boarding House
"And then I turned Bonnie's mother, and you woke up, cracked open that sarcophagus like a walnut and… Well, you were there for the rest."
Hemlock sat back, hard-pressed into her chair, unflinchingly still. By the time it took to reach this end to a nearly two century long tale of brothers, betrayal, and bloodshed, the sun outside had risen high into the soft stretch of blue sky, and the fire in the hearth had died to cinders. Stefan waited for a moment, a breath, and-
"What the fuck?"
She shook her head, pitching forward in her seat to run a delicate hand through her tresses.
"What the actual fuck?"
Stefan wavered were he sat, elbows on bent knees, hands ringing together as he fiddled with his sunlight ring.
"You believe us? I promise, Damon has told no lies-"
Hemlock glowered at him, snatching back to herself, back into the room and out of the past.
"Oh, I believe you, alright. How could I not? Who would be demented enough to make this shit up?"
She flashed to a stand, turned, marched the breadth of the table and then seemingly stopped, swivelled, went left, then right, caught in a pacing of unknown directions and muddled thoughts.
"I just knew it was going to be bad. I just bloody knew it… But not this bad."
Damon, too, stood, hands held up placatingly.
"I know I've done some… Not so awesome things-"
Hemlock shook her head, frustrated, exasperated.
"This is why I didn't come searching for you! You see? The kind of fuckery that is me is so deep-rooted, so profound, so overwhelming that I knew it had to be bloody genetic! I had to get it from somewhere and, well, here you are! Me with a dick and about a million less braincells!"
Damon scoffed.
"That's uncalled for-"
"You framed my mother, resulting in her death, in the hopes of sticking around in this hell-hole of a town so, maybe, if you were a really good Vampire boy, one day you might get a chance to sleep with your brother's human girlfriend! Who, by the way, looks exactly like one of your exes who screwed you both over literally and figuratively! Or did I just make that up from what you just told me?"
Silence… Stillness… defeat.
"Okay, that one might be fair, but-"
Hemlock stopped in her pacing, just as a vase on the mantel broke, that same pomegranate, pine and gunpowder smell drifting in the breeze of the room, magic lashing out.
"But?! But?! There is no fuckin' buts to be had here! You killed my mother! A woman who only ever wanted to help you!"
It was like watching a tornado meet a volcano, a clash of magma and gale connecting somewhere over Grandpa's fine China plates.
"Oh, please. She did it for Stefan not me, and we had fun while it lasted. If I had have known you existed, I wouldn't have done it-"
"Right, so her life only matters when her death has ensuing consequences for you, then? Not that you shouldn't have fuckin' done it at all, but because your undead life is a little bit harder now with her gone thanks to my impossible existence-"
"Don't even bother. You're not fooling anyone. If you're anything like me, which clearly you are, you've made plenty of mistakes-"
"Not of the I'm going to join a Vampire hunting secret society as a fuckin' Vampire kind of senseless mistake, so I can wiggle my way between the thighs of-"
"What would you have done then? Drained them all dry-"
"Maybe! Or, how about this… Nothing. They wouldn't have found any Vampires to kill if you hadn't of spelled that poor sod to play victim in the first place-"
"Compelled. The term is Compelled. If you would simply listen to me-"
"Are you listening to me? You killed my mother, and according to you, I'm some Babylonian Antichrist with fangs prophesized thousands of years ago to go devouring-"
"I didn't call you the Antichrist. That was Caroline. You should take it up with her-"
"How about you take all this and shove it up your-"
"ENOUGH!"
The two, Damon and Hemlock, mercifully paused at Stefan's yell, and he slumped, breathlessly chuckling.
"It's like watching someone fight with their reflection in the mirror."
He shook his head, and peered back to the pair.
"Evidently, this is a… Lot to digest. For all of us. So how about we sit back down, take a deep breath and-"
Hemlock snarled, spun, and rushed for the door. Damon grumbled, shouting at her quickly retreating back.
"And where do you think you're going?!"
She stuck at the crux of the doorway into the hall, shouting back in quick snappy stings.
"To think! Because, obviously, I am the only one currently under this roof who does so regularly!"
Damon took a wide stride to follow as she disappeared from view but not from hearing range.
"Oi, you little gremlin-"
Stefan reached out and snatched his shoulder, holding his brother back.
"Don't. Let her go and… Process all this. It is a lot."
Damon huffed.
"Does she have to be so… so-"
"So you?"
Stefan grinned, and Damon glared back hotly.
"Welcome to the club of knowing a Damon Salvatore. It's an aggravating, infuriating, maddening place, but you get used to it eventually. Sort of."
"I just… I know I've messed up, a whole lot, but I don't want her to think-"
Stefan patted the shoulder gently.
"She knows. She's just… Working through a century in an hour. It's got to be hard to deal with. Her world has just been tipped on its head. She'll come around eventually when she has her thoughts in order."
Damon frowned.
"How do you know that?"
Stefan scoffed.
"Because I've known you, and I've spent nearly a hundred years playing mediator between you and whoever pisses you off. She'll either come around, or dump a body at our feet in spite."
Stefan let his hand fall from his brother's shoulder.
"I'll go speak to her."
Mystic Falls, Virginia, Salvatore Boarding House
Stefan found Hemlock sitting in the stairwell of the upper floors of the boarding house, ducked down deep on a step, chin resting on furled knees locked in the embrace of her wound tight arms.
Stefan came to the step beside her and sat down quietly.
"I thought you would have run from the house."
A hearty scoff was his answer.
"News flash if you weren't paying attention earlier, I'm now something called an All-Blood, I'm lost ten years into the future, everyone I know has moved on without me, and I have-"
The irritation inflaming her voice faded.
"I have nowhere else to go. Hence, the bloody stairs."
Stefan shuffled in his spot.
"I know this is a lot-"
"Oh no."
Hemlock laughed.
"We passed a lot when Damon skimmed over the part about his father locking Vampire's in a burning church. We're now squarely in the land of mind fuck."
Stefan let that linger before he shrugged.
"Maybe, if you count it all in detail… But perhaps we should look at this without the frills. Damon is my brother, and I know he's done some monstrous things-"
"He killed my mother, compelled someone to sleep with him so he could get closer to your girlfriend so he could steal her away from you, killed your mortal descendant because he was an inconvenience, held a town to ransom so he could get his ex-Vampire misses out of some tombs who wasn't even there to begin with, I mean… do you want me to carry on? Because I can. I literally can, and that alone says more than anything I could, doesn't it?"
Stefan wilted.
"Damon… Damon has lived the way he has, and I can't speak for him, but I think I can speak for Lexi."
Green eyes, finally, flickered over to meet his own.
"She was my… She is my best friend."
Even the thought of her brought a tender smile to Stefan's face.
"She was… Bright and vivacious, and kind. God, was she kind. Perhaps the kindest person I have ever known. There wasn't a soul out there I don't think Lexi wouldn't have tried to help if asked."
Hemlock shook her head.
"According to you she didn't even know I existed before she died. Dumbledore-… Someone… She didn't know. She was made to forget. I was nothing to her… Not even a memory."
"Maybe not, but wherever she is, if there really is a heaven or an afterlife for things like us, I think… I think if anyone anywhere deserves to be there, Lexi is, and she knows… And she would be screaming down at me not to mess this up, which I am, aren't I?"
Hemlock smiled, a delicate unfurling modest matter, a small wisp of depreciation.
"Not as much as I'm buggering it up, apparently."
That smile, too, waned when she winced, reaching up to scratch rather harshly at her throat.
"I… I don't know what I am. I'm so bloody thirsty, and the smells-… Fuckin' hell, how do you deal with all the smells? The noise? I can hear your neighbour having a shower and singing 80s pop off tune. It's giving me a headache."
Well, Stefan thought, she had better senses than them, plainly. Their nearest neighbour was about a whole mile out from Stefan's own supernatural senses reach. Which was why Stefan needed to get this next bit right.
True.
"The truth is, Hemlock, I loved Lexi. I trusted Lexi. I would have bet my life on her-… And she saw something in Damon worth her attempt at saving, no matter how futile it was in the end. That… That I have to believe in. And maybe Damon just wasn't ready… Maybe to be saved, one must first want to be saved…"
Hemlock snorted.
"And you're saying my gorgeous face will suddenly invoke inner peace in him? Pull another."
Stefan chuckled.
"I don't think Damon can ever be truly good, but I think he can be better. And I'm not asking you to be the one to do that. That's not your responsibility. No one but Damon can do that. All I am asking is… Is for you to be here to see it. To give us a chance to show you that we are more than what you heard in that drawing room, and to maybe… Maybe, together, figure out what you are and be a family. Babylonian prophecy or not."
Reaching into his back pocket, Stefan pulled out his wallet from the depths, flipped it open, and pulled out the sepia photo he had gathered and secreted in the pouch. Lightly, warmly, he handed it over to Hemlock, this little square photo, who took it gingerly, unfolding the curled edges.
Alexia Branson's face beamed from the burnt sienna hues of a frayed edged photo. Stefan heard Hemlock's voice catch in her burning throat.
"Is that..."
Stefan grinned through his unexpectedly damp gaze.
"That's Alexia Branson. She had that photo taken in 1924, I believe. She was helping me at the time. You see I have a… Problem with human blood. I can't stop when I begin-… She found me ripping my way through a town, slapped me up the back of the head, knocked some sense into me, and showed me I was more than my hunger. That's your mother, right there."
Stefan watched as her bottom lip was sucked between Hemlock's teeth to be gnawed on, the fingers holding the photo so tight he could see the paper dent, but it never ripped.
"She was beautiful."
"Yeah."
Stefan sighed.
"Yeah she was. Inside and out."
Hemlock went to offer the photo back, but Stefan shook his head, holding his own hand up to ward the offering off.
"Keep it. I have plenty more… You can have some, if you want?"
Hemlock cautiously folded the photo up along its creases, and shoved it into an inner pocket of her leather jacket.
"I'd like that."
Hemlock exhaled, slow and stiff.
"I'm not like her, you know? Lexi-… Not very much. In all honesty, I'm a bit of a cunt."
The laugh that followed was lively and, somehow, as similarly loathful.
"I once hexed a boy in a bathroom and… It wasn't a nice hex. It was awful. I watched as he bled out and… I didn't move to help him. Luckily, a teacher found us, and knew enough to stop the bleeding but I… I just stood there and watched him sob, dying, and you want to know the worst thing about it?"
Stefan remained silent, sensing his voice might spook, might be a stopper in this opened flask that, he suspected, didn't often get released if at all.
"I sort of enjoyed it. Seeing him that way. I was finally in… Control. I could make people hurt as they had hurt me and… Merlin, it felt good. Good to finally be the one with power in my hands. That wasn't the only time either. I blew up my adopted aunt Marge and watched her float off into the sky like a balloon snipped from a child's hands, and I laughed. I tried to cast an unforgivable at Bellatrix-… And I was angry when I couldn't get the spell right. I made sure I could cast it correctly by the time I threw it at Amycus Carrow for spitting at McGonagall's face, and I'm pretty sure I did it so well he's in a psych ward now. I locked my cousin in a cage with a python on his birthday because he snickered at me. And when I killed Tom Riddle, when it came to the end-… I didn't do it for love or sacrifice, or because it was the right thing to do like everyone else would tell you. I'm not a character in a fuckin' children's book. I did it because I was tired. I was tired and I wanted the war over with, and if I wasn't going to make it out alive I was going to make damn well sure Tom wasn't either. I'm petty like that."
A humourless chuckle, a pale, almost see-through thing that haunted Stefan.
"I've done other things as well. Things I'm not proud of... Things I'm sure would make you weep, but what I'm trying to say is I'm not kind. I'm not Alexia Branson. I think I might be a fuckin' Damon Salvatore, and-… Maybe that's why I blew up at him down there. I think… Maybe, if we swopped places I might have chosen some of the same bloody paths he did, and I'm sure he would have chosen mine, the bad ones, the not so nice ones… It's easier to yell at him for his mistakes then to yell at myself for mine."
Hemlock turned fully on the stoop, so she could look at Stefan head on.
"If we're going to do this, this… family thing, you need to know that I'm not kind. I'm not your best friend in a different face. I'm not even good. I just… I'm just me. A bit of a cunt who's always been hungry for... For everything."
Stefan did not know what half those words meant, Bellatrix's and Unforgivables and war, but he knew enough, and more importantly, knew he wanted time to come to know what they were.
He knew enough and still reached out, laying a hand on the bent, bunched knee of his niece.
"I've dealt with Damon this long. You're going to have to do better than that to scare me off."
Hemlock smiled back tenderly, achingly, but then coughed, tugged on the hem of her leather jacket, and shrugged.
"It's your grave. Don't say I didn't warn you."
And Stefan had dealt with Damon too long to know that that was slide back into comfortable sarcasm and out of raw exposure. If he tried to push any harder, any further, She'd, just like Damon, lash out.
Time.
They all just needed time.
"Warning taken, and warning ignored."
Hemlock shook her head, curls bouncing across her shoulders.
"I need someone to teach me the ropes of this Vampire-Americano lifestyle any way, and to help figure out what exactly I am, what an All-Blood is. You're here. May as well as use you."
Stefan snorted, the noise bleeding into a throaty chuckle.
"Lovely. It's nice to know I'm useful for something."
"I could always just eat you, if you would prefer that? I am relatively starving."
"Are you sure you can get your fangs out with that mouth full of cynicism? You try and-"
And, of course, right then, just as Stefan was seeing a breakthrough, another set of knocks came from the front door.
He winced and stood from the step.
"Stay here. I'll go see who that is."
"Where else am I going to go? Fuckin' Disneyland? Wait… How close is Disneyland from here?"
Mystic Falls, Virginia, Salvatore Boarding House
Stefan stared, scowling at the figures of Elijah and Niklaus Mikaelson standing on his doorstep. Elijah glared right on back, but it did not escape Stefan's notice that he had a small tick of a grin lurking at the edges of his mouth.
They don't know Hemlock's in the house behind me.
Stefan was pretty sure, as sure as he could be when faced with the Mikaelsons, that neither would be smiling if they knew that morsel of information. There would be fangs, yes, but definitely no smiles.
"I believe we need to discuss what you and your delightful accomplices attempted to do last night with the aid of our mother?"
Stefan grumbled.
He needed the Mikaelsons gone, away from this house and, more crucially, away from his niece.
"I really don't have time for this right now-"
Klaus stiffened, eyes flashing yellow as he slowly turned where he stood, speaking as he rolled on his foot.
"You brought the All-Blood back."
Oh no-
Oh yes.
As Klaus turned, Stefan got a clear shot of his back, down the garden path and steps, and would you look at that, Hemlock rested in the sunlight, hands behind her back, grinning.
The hairs on the back of his neck leapt up to full attention, and Stefan didn't know why until he noticed the floor. Three silhouettes stretched down the steps and out into the garden. There were four people.
Hemlock didn't have a shadow.
How did she even get out the house to get behind the Mikaelsons with the stairs as Stefan's back-
"Ah, come on now, Pup Tart, It's Hemlock. I know, it's a whole two syllables, rather difficult for you apparently, but I am sure with practice and a few doggy treats you can get there. Say it with me now. Hem-Lock."
Klaus sneered, a wolfish snarl blistering in the air, and took a sinister step towards her.
"You impertinent little-"
Hemlock's hands came out from behind her back, raising the brass tacked crossbow high, up to her line of sight, elbow crooked just right to bear the loaded pull, her gaze staring down the barrel to Klaus's heart.
"Finish that sentence. I double-dog dare you. Think you're man enough, Fido, or are you going to run away with that tail between your legs?"
Her voice was a sing-song-lullaby, matched only by the lilt of her grin, and Elijah sped, snatching his brother by his jacket before, inevitably, Klaus could swing at the roguish taunt.
"We are not here to fight."
Elijah assured, but Hemlock was having none of it.
"Really?"
Hemlock asked sardonically, crossbow held straight, steady and true, slipping over to Elijah's chest.
"You could have fooled me. You see, I'm somewhat sure you lot were convinced I was gone by your poor reaction to little ol' me standing here now, and seen as I came in yesterday and took a wrecking ball to the pretty-bitty hierarchy you have set up in this town, you thought you would come traipsing over and re-establish your little dominion. So, no, I don't think you came all this way just to talk to Stefan."
Elijah's head cocked to the side, but Stefan didn't miss the way his glance flickered to the crossbow aimed right at him.
"We're not the ones with a loaded weapon… And that stake you have balanced on there is the wrong kind. Only White Oak works on us, I'm afraid, and they're all gone. Perhaps you should lower it and-"
Perhaps Elijah wanted to mollify Hemlock, defuse the situation, dissuade her from her weapon so she would drop it when she figured out it was useless-
It did none of those things, however, as the grin on Hemlock's face grew legs and teeth of its own. A gnarly contorted thing of thorns and brambles.
"Really?"
A sizzle and a pop and a burst of gold light, and the stake on the crossbow-
Bleached to white and grey and oak.
Hemlock rested her chin on the butt of the crossbow at her shoulder, winking one eye closed so the other could stare down the stake.
The White Oak stake.
"Did you fuckin' forget I can do magic? I can't believe you just-… I really am the only one in this town who has a brain bigger than my ego, aren't I?"
No, but whatever magic Hemlock ran on, it wasn't like anything they had seen before. Not like Bonnies. Not like Esther's. Not like anything else.
How could she just blink a White Oak stake into existence-
A snicker, and her finger rested on the trigger.
"Want to see if my magically conjured stake works as well as any other? My bet is on yes. I'll give you to the count of three. Three. Two. On-"
"Wait!"
Elijah urged, stepping in front of his snarling brother Klaus, who, from the slide of his feet on the step, had been getting ready to dive for the tiny woman.
"We truly did come here to talk."
Hemlock's trigger finger lifted an inch, only an inch, but it was enough.
"Well, I'm sick and tired of older men telling me what I should or shouldn't be, or what I should or shouldn't do, or where or how I should belong in your fuckin' world. So I'm going to fuckin' talk, and you bastards are going to listen."
"Hemlock-"
But Hemlock ignored Stefan.
"The way I see it, this is going to go down one of two ways. You decide to fight me because you don't like the idea of my existence and because of some half-translated prophesy about doom and gloom and yada, yada, yada, bore. I'll win in the end. I always do. I'm lucky like that. You'll all be dead, and then I'll move onto draining this city, and every other city, dry because I am starving."
Elijah slanted a brow high when Hemlock vacillated into silence.
"Or?"
Hemlock flashed another feral grin, and Stefan's stomach dropped. He didn't like this. He didn't like this one bit-
"Or you use your one saving grace, the last card in your hand that might see you get to play another game after all."
She raised the crossbow, balancing the brute of it across her shoulder, behind her back, carelessly, recklessly.
A power play.
"You smell extremely nice. Very scrumptious, actually. Well done, gold star for… Biology, I suppose? That Liquorice one too? Wild eyes… Yeah, him too. So… Let's make a deal. I don't kill you lot, I won't hunt you down and slit your throats and hang you upside down while I fill up some sippy-cups; I won't destroy this city or any other city, I won't have to kill anyone else again, everybody gets to live happily ever after, safe and sound in their little hobbit holes, and all you have to do…"
Elijah sighed, and it was then that Stefan understood what he did, what Hemlock was edging towards-
No… she wouldn't.
Of course she would.
No, Stefan thought. She couldn't. She didn't understand how personal and intimate-
"We give you regular… Contributions of our blood."
Hemlock chuckled at Elijah's conclusion.
"Bingo. You know, maybe there is hope of bumping up the average IQ of this place after all."
And as if that wasn't worse enough, Hemlock moved, casually strolling back up the entrance steps of the Salvatore Boarding house, carelessly bypassing Elijah and Niklaus, not even glancing their way as she settled beside Stefan. Another power play. A clear dismissal.
"I'll tell you what. I'm feeling rather generous thanks to Stefan here, so why don't I give you a few hours to think it over? Say… Four? Good. Ta-ta now."
Klaus's lip curled over a descended fang.
"If you think you can just-"
Hemlock rolled her eyes.
"I don't think. I just did. Now piss off or I'm going to show you exactly why you should have taken my deal when I offered it."
"I'm going to peel the skin-"
Elijah tugged his brother away, as Stefan did the same with his niece. Surprisingly enough, both let it happen, perhaps realizing the confines of the entrance of the Salvatore Boarding house was narrow enough that, should they attack each other with more than just words, Elijah and Stefan would be possibly caught in the crossfire.
"We'll consider it."
Elijah stated.
"Good."
Hemlock bared her teeth, green eyes blazing, and that was when Stefan saw them closely in their heightened state. There was no black veins, no blown pupil, no pinpricked one either-
They'd tightened up and stretched out, like slits, like-
Like a snakes, yellow sheen glazing over the impossible green.
"And consider putting a muzzle on your dog. His yap, yap, yapping is starting to annoy me-"
"One more canine joke and I promise you I'm going to-"
"What? Tear up my slippers? Shit on my carpet-"
Stefan, finally, tugged Hemlock inside, just as Elijah jerked Klaus down the garden path, with one last parting shot from Elijah before Stefan slammed the front door.
"I'll return with an answer."
The door lock clicked, and Hemlock scowled over at Stefan, eyes back to normal.
"Why'd you go and do that?"
"Me?"
Stefan huffed incredulously.
"What was I doing? What were you thinking?! Where did you even get that?"
Hemlock huffed and dashed the loaded crossbow against the wall, turning to walk down the hall.
"Magic, remember. Merlin. So slow. I'm legitimately shocked any of you have survived this long without me."
Damon came down the other corridor, hair glistening, fresh from the shower he had obviously used to cool off from the situation earlier, likely why he hadn't heard the commotion outside with how high he blazed his music in there, buttoning up his shirt, cocking a brow at the sight of them marching down the hall.
"Did I miss something?"
"She just threatened the Mikaelsons with a crossbow on our porch steps!"
Damon froze, before he gazed over to a huffing Hemlock crossing her arms over her chest and then-
Then he smiled.
"Did it work?"
Hemlock-
Hemlock beamed back at Damon, and Stefan felt the first drumming twangs of a migraine pounding at his temple.
"It did."
She said, as she continued towards the drawing room.
Damon shrugged, threw his hands out, and angled his head at Stefan.
"I don't see a problem then. Quick thinking, by the way."
He finished as he span into the room, following Hemlock.
"I told Stefan that, but he wouldn't listen."
Stefan shook his head like a dog shook water from its coat, a pit of stony dread taking deep root in his gut.
"No, no, no, no, no. This is not how it's going to go. Not the both of you. I only have one set of eyes and ears and hands!"
Next Chapter Preview (Ignore if you wish):
Her throat bobbed.
"Oh, it's not that bad reall-"
Hemlock froze.
Completely froze.
Stefan frowned.
"Hemlock? You okay there?"
Nothing. Not even a blink.
"Hemlock-"
She cut Damon off with a hand raise, one lone finger held up, a strange gurgling, stirring, bubbling noise rumbling and-
And that was about when she swivelled in her seat, mercifully in the opposite direction of Stefan, and hurled burgundy blood all over the kitchen floor.
xXx
Hemlock grinned.
"I'm super badass, like… Ridiculously badass, and I defy all laws of nature?"
Stefan chuckled.
"Or that, I suppose. Either way, we might be able to find remnants of a Witch or two in the family if we look hard enough in the records. If not… We might have to go looking into the Branson side of things."
Hemlock nonchalantly shrugged.
"My bets on the Salvatore side."
She said as she scrutinized a keen eye over at Stefan.
"Given that you're under that rather nasty reincarnation curse too. You know, the same one as that Ellie girl."
Stefan stopped his drumming fingers across the countertop, giving his undivided attention to his niece, blinking owlishly as his voice strained stiff like a violin cord pulled too tight for too long.
"Excuse me?"
xXx
Maybe I can go out and find a nice lad or lady to-
Hemlock shook that thought clean off, ducking her face under the warm spray to wash away the shampoo. She was stronger, had always been stronger, and faster than most, sensitive to smells and touch and taste, even before dying at Tom Riddle's wand point and waking up to find food now ash on her tongue.
It had made dating… Difficult. Nearly impossible. One night stands even harder, and all of it so utterly unenjoyable.
Now-
Well, now was worse, now everything was amped up to fuckin' ten, and in the heat of the moment she'd end up cracking the poor human's back like a glow stick.
This town does have a seemingly overabundance of Vampires, they might be able to withstand-
She, anew, winced at that one.
She wouldn't be able to help herself, that close, that filled up, this on edge, she'd bite.
You don't fuck a sandwich and then eat said sandwich, do you? Gross.
Yay or Nay?
A.N:
Damon: There is one rule of Vampire society we Salvatore's live by, and it is this; Klaus can go get fucked.
Hemlock, nodding: Ah, I see. It all makes sense now. *conjures roses, handcuffs, and a bottle of chardonnay.
Damon: No! Not that fucked! Never that fucked!
Welcome back, one and all to what I am now calling Mikaelson Monday! I'm lucky enough to have a week off from Uni currently, and I've been spending that time catching up with this fic and roughly lining some chapters up. So here is a super speedy update, and quite a big one too, and hopefully, by the time I post this, I will have a few more chapters at least partially written. Hope you all liked it!
P.S: Hermione and Co won't show up for a long, long while yet. First they have to track Hemlock down, and seen as this story is mostly told from Hemlock's presence, if not her P.O.V, it's going to be some time before they show up. I just wanted to give you lovely guys the heads up as I noticed a few of you were looking forward to seeing Hermione and Teddy again and I didn't want to get your hopes up. They do come, but not for a fair few chapters yet.
P.S.S: Canon Harry did actually successfully preform the Crutiatus curse on Amycus Carrow for spitting in McGonagall's face in 1998. Amycus, according to the books, was thrown into the air and knocked unconscious pretty quickly by it. Common fan theory on it was that although Harry's curse was intense, he lacked the fundamental sadism to inflict prolonged, excruciating pain with it. I don't truly buy this though. I like to think, especially with my darker fem!Harry's, that seen as we know the curse was successful, it wasn't exactly sadism they were lacking but restraint and patience (both of which we know Canon Harry terribly lacks), and thus, instead of a slow drawn out torrent of pain like Bellatrix was able to do (who was a true sadist), Harry's was more like a bomb, everything hit at once like an explosion, Harry finally popping under all the trauma and anger and lashing out at the sight of one of their last icons of childhood being so disrespected, and it ploughed into Carrow and, under such onslaught, he was knocked unconscious. To have that much pain knock someone unconscious so quickly... Well, given what happened to Frank and Alice Longbottom, I don't think it's a far off stretch to believe, under such a brutal mental attack (I like to believe the Cruciatus curse is more a supplanting of pain mentally rather than any physical assault) Amycus wouldn't end up in Saint Mungos, and additionally, because Harry was even able to successfully preform an Unforgivable, why I don't really like the whole whiter-than-white Child saviour trope. Just in case anyone at all wanted to hear my thoughts on this, lmao.
Thank you everyone, reviewers, favouriters, and followers. I do sincerely hope you are enjoying this ride so far. As always, if you have a spare moment, don't forget to drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all again soon.
