How I Met:

teddy lupin, werewolf brat

thebluefrenchhorn

Damon didn't need to reference a few hours ago to know that, with absolute certainty, this wasn't the way that he had planned to spend his afternoon. In fact, for all of his elongated life span—even those pesky years during the eighties that he preferred to forget had ever existed—he had never even considered spending his afternoon in this manner.

But, here he was, his body barely supported by a tiny, little, plastic, red chair, as a toddler tried to force feed him milk from an ornate teacup.

It didn't get any better after that.

Thirty minutes prior to what he would later describe as 'the incident', Damon had found himself in a starring contest with Hariel.

"You mean to tell me that you," he gestured towards all four feet and eleven inches of her form, "are the so called embodiment of death."

He stared at her incredulously, one of his hands thrown up in exasperation as the other worked to keep the door propped open in case she decided to slam it in his face. "Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?" he pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a puff of air. "Trust me, lady, I know crazy. I lived through the fifties and they used turtle cartoons to promote bomb safety. Heck, only a couple weeks ago, I ran into one of your cult fanatics. But, this? This is a whole new level of insane."

Hariel tilted her head to the side in question, looking an awful lot like a misplaced puppy. "I have cult fanatics?" she repeated with confusion, before murmuring thoughtfully, "Ginny did go through that 'phase' in second year by collecting my hairs, so it shouldn't be all that inconceivable..."

She trailed off and Damon didn't even bother to cover his groan of frustration. What was with these people? First his wannabe mugger and now this? He had hoped that Hariel, of all the eccentric characters he had run into recently, would at least be relatively normal. She had seemed so at the bar, coy and secretive, but still with a reasonable grasp on her sanity. Apparently he was wrong.

"A girl collected your hair and what you're hung up on is the fact that a crazy," he stopped, searching for the word she had used. "A crazy nargal lady seems to worship you?"

At this, understanding dawned on Hariel's face. "Was she blonde by any chance?"

Damon grimaced, remembering the mess of platinum strands that had seemed to be everywhere except where they were supposed to be. Honestly, one had ended up in his tea of all things—it was disgusting! "Trust me, she was definitely blonde."

"Then it was probably Luna!" Hariel exclaimed, her features morphing to accommodate a small smile. "I can understand the confusion, though. She's brilliant, but certainly one of a kind."

That's one way to put it, Damon thought, internally rolling his eyes, before rehashing his previous thoughts. "You seriously don't believe that you're Death, right?"

"It's not about believing," Hariel responded, her eyes suddenly hard. They were brighter than before, an almost toxic shade of green as they flashed with emotion. "It simply is. Whether you believe it or not doesn't change that."

Damon opened his mouth, preparing to abject but, before he had a chance, Hariel silenced him with a look. It wasn't a glare. In fact, it wasn't even all that malicious. But, it was heavy, the air filled with the same heady weight that had smothered him the first time they met, and Damon couldn't help but snap his jaw shut.

"Don't ask me for a demonstration," she continued, her hands bunched in that same oversized jumper she always seemed to wear. "I may be new to this whole Death thing, but I know better than to barter myself off like some one-trick pony."

"You're new to this whole death thing?" Damon questioned dubiously.

He was pretty sure that death had always been thing. No, he was definitely sure that death had always existed. He had drained the life out of enough humans to know that for a fact.

"Don't get me wrong, you're spinning quite the story and while I admire the tenacity, from one fast talker to another, I just want to let you know that denying the previous existence of death doesn't necessarily sell your story."

Hariel blushed, tugging on one of her unruly burgundy curls. The strand, juxtaposed to the glaring red of her halfway opened door, appeared darker than it had previously in the warm lighting of the bar.

"I didn't mean that things haven't died before," she mumbled, blinking her big, green eyes. As unnerving as they were, Damon could admit that they were rather pretty with their soft almond shape and the dusting of dark red lashes that framed them. "I just meant that I've come into my inheritance as Death rather recently. I'm still trying to figure everything out. I think time travel may have played a part..."

Damon blinked in response, ceasing his soft tapping on the door. He wasn't even going to try to open the jar of crazy that was the second part of her response. "So you're saying that you're like a... baby death?"

"I guess." Hariel laughed. She drug a hand through her unruly locks, messing them up even more than before. "I never really thought of it like that."

Her brows furrowed in thought, small lips forming a pout and Damon couldn't help but release a chuckle at the tiny woman before him.

"Well then, Baby Death," he stated—rather charismatically if he did say so himself—,"how do you feel about inviting me in then? As nice as it is talking to you in the rundown hallway of your apartment building, I'd really like a drink." He flashed his fangs for a second, dragging his tongue over the right one's tip. "I'm feeling quite peakish."

Hariel just responded with a glare, opening her door the rest of the way. "You can come in, Damon, but there better not be any funny business."

"Yes, ma'am." Damon responded with a cheery salute.

"What's with the kid? You look way too young to be a mother." Damon said, eyeing the mini-human that had appeared in a blue blur the minute Hariel had stepped into the room.

The little urchin was glaring daggers at him from where he stood behind Hariel's leg, tucked rather neatly into her side. "My Hari," he stressed with childish vindication before flashing his violently turquoise hair to the pleasant burgundy of Hariel's locks.

Well damn, Damon thought, that wasn't something you saw everyday.

"Teddy, please be nice," Hariel gently reprimanded. She crouched down, eye-level with the kid as she ruffled his hair affectionately. "Damon is a friend of mine and it would mean a lot to me if you got along." Accepting the small nod from the unhappy squirt, she turned her gaze towards Damon. "He's my godson." she explained fondly.

"Hari says that my parents were heroes." The little urchin piped up proudly and, ouch, if Damon actually had a heart he might have felt a little bad for the little demon. Unfortunately, he didn't and he was stuck contemplating Hariel's earlier words. How did she even know his name to begin with? He didn't remember giving it to her.

Before he could ask, however, the kid had piped up again. "You smell weird, mister," he wrinkled his small nose in distaste, "I don't like it. It's icky."

"Teddy!" Hariel admonished. "Is that a nice thing to say?"

The kid shuffled his feet uncomfortably, before puffing up his cheeks. "But it's true!"

Hariel sighed. "Damon's different than us. That's why he smells a little funny to you." She tweaked his nose with a laugh. "You probably smell funny to him too."

Damon frowned. Now that Hariel had mentioned it, the little menace did smell a bit strange. Not overwhelmingly so, but certainly enough to suggest that he wasn't completely human. It was almost like...ah, so that's what it was, Damon realized, that's why she didn't have any problems with me coming in. She probably assumed that she could just have the kid bite me if things went south.

Almost as if reading his mind, Hariel shot him a glare. "Don't even think about it."

Shaking his head, Damon raised his hands in surrender. "Don't worry, I won't touch a hair on Werewolf Brat's head."

"My name's Teddy," the little boy corrected, his little hands scrunched into tiny fists. "T-E-D-D-Y, okay? It's not that hard."

Before the argument could escalate (as much as one could escalate when one of the participants was barely older than a toddler), Hariel cut in. "Teddy, you ought to be nicer to Damon. After all, he agreed to watch you while I did some errands."

Damon froze. She wouldn't, would she? Judging by the small smirk on her face and the equally as small child barreling towards him, she would.

"I still don't like you, mister, but maybe I'll like you more if you play tea party with me," the child babbled excitedly and it took all of Damon's self control not to snap his wrist as his hand latched onto his own.

"You let your godson play tea party?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes, I do," she replied defiantly. "It's what makes him happy." With a swift jerk of her hand, she brushed her unruly locks out of her face, trying in vain to make them neater before smoothly slipping on her jacket. "I expect no funny business," she asserted.

"How do you know that I won't just leave?" Damon shot back. It was his turn to be defiant.

"Because you still have questions that you need to be answered and I won't be saying anything if I return with my godson unsupervised," she responded, wrapping a shimmering scarf around her neck. "I'm assuming you know better than to try to drink from him?" she inquired, her gaze sharp. Damon nodded. "Good. If you get thirsty, there's a bloodbag in the fridge. I picked it up this morning."

Then, with a loud crack, she was gone, leaving Damon staring blankly at the place she had occupied previously, her small godson hanging off his arm like the little limpet that he was.

How did she know that he was coming?

Author's Note: Oh, Hariel, you try so hard to be suave, don't you? But, everyone knows that you're still just a baby death. And, yes, Teddy knows about being part-werewolf, because I just can't see her lying to him after she was lied to all of her life.