Chapter 17: It's About Time
DAMON
It's weird, but Elena's question really got me thinking about my new life. Which I haven't much, except to thank fucking Christ that nobody's kicked me out of it yet.
The biggest difference is that it's noisy. No matter where I lived before, it was quiet and neat until I wanted it to be loud and crazy. Now, soundproofed bedrooms or not there's always somebody coming or going, fighting or laughing, making a mess.
Makes it a little easier to think, somehow.
I lean against the counter and smirk as I watch my brother wrinkle his brow at the marshmallows he's pouring into a bowl.
"This is not food. This is like two removes from edible for a vampire." He shoots me a pained glance. "There's so much weird food nowdays. Have you ever tried Cheetos?"
"Pop-rocks," I tell him. "I thought Jell-O was the worst food invention until I tried Pop-rocks. It's like shoving firecrackers into your nose."
Elena comes over and stands next to me, offering me a shy little smile. I note that she retrieved the bottle of lemonade I brought her. I slide a hand across her back and hook a finger through her belt loop, tugging her closer. I don't want Kyle to start bitching about our PDA, but every time she forgives me, I feel like a cat that's one life closer to the great shoebox in the sky. I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do when I hit my limit.
"At least when we were human, food still resembled food," Stefan gripes, mixing fruit and goop together in a bowl with the marshmallows.
"You're just saying that because you were too young to enjoy the glories of defending the South with me," I argue. "All of us living off of rancid bacon and hardtack as moldy as our socks after two straight months of rain."
"Gross," Elena protests. "Socks don't actually get moldy, do they?"
I raise an eyebrow. "By the end of the second month, there wasn't much that wasn't moldy. I thought I was finally growing chest hair until I realized it was green."
Caroline shudders. "Really, Damon? You couldn't have saved that stunning pronouncement until after we ate?"
"Now that Stefan's cooking, it's kind of a public service to ruin people's appetites, don't you think?" I propose.
Elena pokes me in the ribs. "Be nice."
"Beauty Queen, before you started castration via marshmallow experiments on Baby Bro, did you happen to check in the fridge?"
"Brother," Stefan says, calmly poking a miniature marshmallow into my ear canal. "Don't you worry. I've got masculinity to spare."
I shake the marshmallow free and flick it back at him.
Caroline perks up, heading for the fridge. "Why, did you make ambrosia salad?"
"Fuck no," I protest, offended. "Does it look like my balls are hanging from your rearview mirror?"
"He made potato salad for you," Elena says, giving me a soft-eyed smile that almost makes purposeful culinary butchery worth it.
Caroline digs in the fridge until she emerges triumphantly with a Tupperware bowl, taking an eager peek at the contents.
"Wait," she says suspiciously. "You didn't put your fancy–"
"Road-cone-colored mustard," I interrupt. "Just like you like it."
She turns her wide baby blues my direction and I hastily tug Elena around in front of me, wrapping affectionate arms around her waist.
"Am I just a shield to you?" my girlfriend asks without heat.
But I don't dare risk it. My brother's fiancé is looking dangerously melty and she's a hugger. The fact that she doesn't like me doesn't always save me from being the target of this particularly offensive personal habit.
"Don't you point that sleeping-puppy-calendar look at me," I warn Caroline. "I was just trying to get you to stop name-calling. I did my damn part for our on-going attempts to play human."
Elena shifts as if to get out of the way of the Forbes rib-compaction procedure but I hang onto her with no small amount of desperation.
"I'm sorry I called you a jerk-face," Caroline says softly.
"Sure you are," Kyle says, swiping a goopy marshmallow out of Stefan's bowl and popping it in his mouth. "For about the next minute and twenty seconds, by my count. Are we eating and playing or playing then eating?"
Caroline glares at him. "Ew, Kyle. Have you ever heard of germs?"
The vampire hunter rolls his eyes. "We're all immune to disease."
"I don't think basic hygiene is too much to ask," Caroline says snippily.
"Where are Matt and Bonnie, anyway?" Elena asks, referencing the only two members of our group that still have to worry about germs.
"Donovan had pressing tables to bus," I tell her. "And Brunhilda probably found an AA meeting full of people to practice her judgmental face on."
"Bonnie's dad is on a home-for-dinner kick," Jeremy reports, sauntering into the kitchen and stealing a marshmallow out of Stefan's bowl. "Oh, nice. Grandma used to make this stuff at Thanksgiving."
Stefan throws Caroline an injured look and I cuff Jeremy lightly in the shoulder. "Have some respect. Your GrandSteffy went to all this trouble to make weird crap for you to eat. The least you can do is not compare his glop to your familial glop recipe."
"Hey!" Elena protests. "Grandma's ambrosia salad was really good."
I sneak a thumb under the hem of her shirt and stroke the soft skin just above her waistband. "If we don't stop talking about ambrosia salad, my balls are going to shrivel up so small that Caroline can put them on her keychain instead of her rearview mirror."
"Too late," Jeremy says, stepping neatly out of my reach.
I move to go after him just as Elena folds her hands over mine, hiding the extracurricular activities of my exploring thumb. I settle back against the counter, sending her little brother a narrow-eyed look so he knows I'll pay him back for that one later.
"Regular teams, right?" he asks, eyeing the potato salad Caroline's still hugging happily to her chest.
"Doesn't count toward the tournament, otherwise," Stefan says mildly.
"Salvatores have to play with a handicap," Caroline protests, putting her prized potato salad back in the fridge, away from Jeremy's hungry growth-spurt hands.
Stefan abandons his marshmallow mush and slides an arm around her waist. "You're practically a Salvatore," he reminds her, pressing a kiss to her shoulder from behind.
She beams at him and spins to steal a real kiss.
Kyle sighs and I look away. "Once she joins the team, we won't need a handicap," I point out. "Girl draws like Jackson Pollock with ADD."
"I don't have a regular team," Kyle complains.
"You're on Jeremy's team," I leer meaningfully. "Taking Donovan's place. I hear they play your style over there."
I take Elena with me when I dodge the punch her brother aims at my shoulder.
"Don't be a douche, Damon," he complains.
Kyle sighs again, louder. "What happened to the lovely lecture about tolerance you gave my favorite customer last week?"
"How is he your favorite customer after what he called you?" Elena asks in disbelief.
"You should have seen the tip he left me after Damon got done 'explaining' about the practical application of equal rights for all sexual preferences," Kyle grins.
"He should have kept the money for the reconstructive surgery," Jeremy says, opening the bag of chips he bought earlier and digging out a handful. "Hey, if I have to trade out Matt, I get Ric, too."
I drop a kiss onto Elena's hair and sidestep to sweep her brother into a headlock. "Why, so you can make up all his answers? Good try, Whoopi, but no cigar."
"I heard the tournament prize was an Acura," Kyle pipes up. "I wouldn't have shown up if the stakes were back down to fancy cigars."
Jeremy drives his kneecap into the vulnerable tendons at the back of my knee. I manage to shift my weight in time to keep from crashing to the floor, but I lose my grip on him in the process. I raise an eyebrow. "You into the Red Bulls again? That was almost fast enough for a qualification to the Walkers and Wheelchairs 5K."
Jeremy flips his shaggy hair out of his face and narrows his eyes at me, which does nothing to hide the glint of pride in them. "Fast enough to put an end to you, old man."
"Jeremy," Elena snaps. "We do not joke about killing vampires in this house."
"That's right," I agree primly. "In this house, we just kill them. We don't joke about it first."
She turns her death glare on me and Jeremy laughs. "No, seriously, though, I get Ric."
"It's one of the only games he can play," Caroline points out sympathetically. "There's probably not that much to do on the Other Side."
"I'll tell the truth about his guesses," Jeremy promises. "I give you my oath."
"Jeremy Gilbert, you did not just invoke the sacred Hunter's Oath over a ghost and a damn Pictionary game!" Kyle exclaims in exasperation.[1]
"He so did," Caroline giggles, heading for the living room.
Elena pokes me pointedly in the ribs. "I told Damon we weren't betting cars."
I catch her hand and pretend to bite her finger and she blushes and bumps me with her hip.
"What's the harm?" I ask her. "I'll just win it back anyway."
"Ah, ah, ah," Stefan cautions. "I want my half. Which means we have to liquidate. I don't need another car."
"I like Acuras," Caroline complains.
"You can have my half," Stefan offers with a grin.
"It's the passenger side," I warn her. "And I play my music very loud and drive recklessly."
"Doesn't matter," Elena declares. "You won't be driving, because you guys are not winning again." She and Caroline share a determined glance and I try not to laugh as we head for the living room.
They're dead last. Every single time. Which sucks, because the whole reason I bet a car was to get Elena out of her mommy-mobile SUV. She should be driving something classier. Something sleek and beautiful without being ostentatious, with a stereo whose volume knob doesn't fall off twice a week. Don't get me wrong, that boxy thing's great for hauling coffins and bodies, but it's not good enough for my girl by far.
Caroline, Elena and I take over the couch while Jeremy digs out the big easel and paper we always use for this game.
"I know it's organic," Caroline teases Elena, eyeing the lemonade she's holding in her lap. "But are you going to drink it or cuddle with it?"
Elena blushes and avoids my eyes.
I sling an arm over her shoulder. "Vampires are known for getting personal with their drinks."
Elena huffs out an exasperated breath and I duck under her hair to press a kiss to her cheek while she squirms in half-hearted protest.
Caroline groans as she loses rock, paper, scissors to Jeremy. He always picks rock and she always picks scissors. How the fuck they think that's still a fair contest, I'd love to know. Jeremy turns to Stefan for the next round.
I've been banned from that game for months now, because I always win. By the end of the year, I should be banned from about every game Elena has forced me into playing, which suits me just fine.
I take a sip of my drink, not bothering to watch. My brother always goes paper or rock, which means he'll win on the first round or the tie-rematch with Jeremy, depending on which one he picks first. Jeremy curses softly and I hear Stefan catch the marker the teenaged vampire hunter tosses him.
My brother draws a card and Caroline flips the timer before he even has a chance to think it over.
He sends her a mildly irritated look and I prop my boots up on the coffee table as he starts to draw a branching object, like some kind of wild bush-tree. I wait while he draws little balls on the end of each branch. Not a fruit tree, given the placement. Not a famous art installation. He rubs the back of his hand across his forehead like he's scratching it, so nobody else will pick up the cue. Someplace hot then. A weird bush in a hot place.
"Joshua tree."
Stefan winks at me and tosses the marker to a gaping Jeremy.
"What the hell is a Joshua tree?" he wants to know.
"It's like a Christmas tree," I tell him. "Because it comes with an Acura underneath it, with a big red bow and my name on top. Your turn, Ghostbusters."
"No letting Ric peek," Caroline warns.
Jeremy makes a face at her and pulls a card, keeping it close to his chest as he gestures for her to turn over the timer. He quickly draws a square with a triangle on top.
"Box, home, house," Kyle guesses in fast succession and Jeremy shakes his head twice then nods excitedly and moves on to sketch a cigar-shaped thing, then a blob with lines coming out of its head.
"You know, this wouldn't have become a tournament if any of you could draw worth a shit," I point out. "You're supposed to be the artist around here."
Jeremy scowls and scribbles out his blob, redrawing a smaller, less-hurried blob under the cigar, this time with identifiable whiskers. A seal?
"Garfield?" Kyle guesses. "A fat cat. Wait, no, a walrus?"
I smile. Clubbing baby seals. Elena's going to hate that. Which makes the word…
"Ric got it!" Jeremy crows.
"A walrus?" Elena says skeptically.
"Clubhouse," Jeremy and I say at the same time.
"Wait, how on earth?" she sputters, confused. Jeremy opens his mouth and I give him a quick head shake.
"Never mind," he tells her, cracking his knuckles with a cocky smile. "It's a guy thing. You wouldn't get it."
I watch Jeremy's face, trying to catch a hint of where Ric's standing. It must drive him fucking crazy hanging out with us when somebody's always trying to sit on him, and only being able to talk through a moody teenager. No wonder he wants to join Jenna in the shiny happy place.
Jeremy passes the marker to Elena. She hands her lemonade to me to hold, giving me a small smile that has my lips curving in return before they have my permission to give me away. She steps over Kyle's outstretched legs, her jeans pulling taut against the round curve of her ass.
Caroline pokes me in the ribs. "Pervert," she mutters.
I give her an unapologetic flare of my eyes. "Beauty Queen, it would be a rejection of the beauty of God's creation to ignore an ass like that."
She rolls her eyes and Elena picks a card and flips the timer. Caroline's eyes snap to the easel as her competitive instinct kicks in. No one who has ever seen Caroline Forbes focus on a prize would have ever doubted that she was destined to become a vicious predator. Whether it is a certificate for community participation or the regional time trials for curling iron usage, she's like a lioness let loose on a dairy farm.
Elena draws a slanted line.
"Hill! Skiing, mountain, heli-skiing!" Caroline guesses, bouncing slightly on the couch cushion.
I'm not on their team, but this is too good to pass up. "The table that Jeremy built in woodshop."
Elena's shoulders shake with silent laughter. Her brother throws me a dark look.
"Roof, stage, playground slide," Caroline barks out.
"Horizon line to a drunk guy," I add.
Elena turns and tries to narrow her eyes at us, but she's laughing too hard for it to have much impact.
"Flagpole after the drunk guy hits it with his Camaro," Kyle teases.
"I don't drive drunk," I protest.
Elena draws a triangle on the front of the line.
"Arrow, javelin, spear, dart!" Caroline blurts.
"I notice you didn't say you don't drink and drive," Kyle points out.
Elena adds fletching to her arrow and then circles the shaft, raising her eyebrows at Caroline, who guesses, "Handle?"
Elena rolls her eyes and starts rubbing the marker up and down the shaft, emphasizing the line of it, staring pointedly at her teammate, who looks baffled.
"You keep working the marker like that and I'm gonna have to guess ejaculation," I drawl.
"Damon!" Elena burst out as the same time as Caroline huffs disgustedly and throws her phone at me. I catch it and toss it to my younger brother, who catches it without altering the disapproving frown he's pointing at me.
"Time's up," Jeremy points out.
I laugh, because Stefan looks like he's going to sprain his over-developed brow muscle and because we're going to dominate this Pictionary tournament, which means he's going to look really weird driving the car I had all picked out for Elena. It's got a big engine, but the lines are satisfyingly feminine. Idiot would probably drive it with a straight face, oblivious as he is. If he can drive that matchbox Porsche without laughing his lungs inside out every time he opens the garage door, he's capable of anything. I ought to get him one of those Mary Kay pink Cadillacs in his stocking for Christmas.
I hand Elena's lemonade back to her and brush a kiss across her temple as I get up. I eagerly reach for the box of cards, and that's when it hits me.
I'm a vampire.
And I'm playing fucking Pictionary.
Which was humiliating enough the first three times Elena's damn doe eyes suckered me into it. But this time? I'm actually enjoying it.
I mumble something about being back in a minute and beat feet out of the Gilbert's Pottery Barn showpiece of a living room, up their family-picture-lined stairs and into Elena's bathroom, which is the furthest locking door away from the Leave-It-To-Beaver-meets-Twilight spectacle that I just realized I was a part of.
I brace both hands against the sink and try to take a breath, which isn't the easiest thing because I can never make it up those stairs without Elena's eighth grade softball-team picture making a negative image behind my eyelids. She's got braces, a high ponytail and a delighted grin and it always gives me the intense but competing urges to make her a spaghetti dinner and to jerk off in her bathroom.
Which just proves that I'm two steps past the waiting room for the psychiatric ward.
I glare at the sunny picture of pink hibiscus flowers on the front of Elena's hand soap dispenser. What the fuck is a notorious creature of the night doing in a house like this?
My kills made Al Capone famous and now I'm playing board games and making food I don't even like for a girl who's not even mine because somehow I care if she's happy. I'm one bundt cake from growing ovaries and crying at Nicholas Sparks movies.
It was one thing when it was just Elena.
Wars have been started over women like that. When we first met, I would have pioneered a holy crusade just for a chance to study the curve where her luscious backside smoothes into unlimited legs the color of heavy cream with just a hint of dark roasted coffee.
I never had a chance in hell of controlling myself faced with odds like those. And I never gave a shit, either.
But as for the whole rest of our drama-centric cornucopia of supernatural creatures? I prefer to keep my escape hatch open when it comes to them.
For fuck's sake, I once had sex with the whole springtime collection of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models (March through May, in like a lamb and out like a lion and all three of them left me purring like a kitten) and two members of the Rolling Stones, all at the same time. And then last week I caught myself wondering if Jeremy was having safe sex. I don't even know if vampire hunters need to have safe sex and let's face it: I'm never going to be drunk enough to ask Kyle. Even if I was, I'd never be able to beat him severely enough that he'd let me live it down.
I might as well take up origami. The new me is going to need a suitably dickless hobby and croquet just takes too long to set up. Fuck it, maybe I'll take over knitting Elena's regurgitated hairball of a scarf. By the time it's long enough to wear, my scrotum will have retreated so far that it'll be like having a budget-friendly sex change.
"Damon?" Elena asks softly from the other side of the door. "Is everything okay?"
"Can't a guy take a piss in peace in this fucking house?" I snap, and then immediately regret it, glaring at myself in the mirror. "Hell. I'm an ass, Elena. Ignore me, I'll be out in a minute."
Instead there's a slight metallic scrape and the knob turns. Elena slips inside and closes the door behind her, her head tilted as she studies me. "Hey."
"You broke the lock just to check on me?" I ask in disbelief. "You're getting as bad as I am."
Elena holds up a straightened paper clip, waggling it with a guilty smile. "Jeremy used to steal my diary and lock himself in here when I had friends over. He'd read it as loud as he could so everyone would hear and the faster I could pick the lock, the faster I could shut him up."
I smirk, but it's a weak attempt.
She flips on the faucet to drown out our words and hops up to sit on the counter, her feet swinging cheerfully.
"Decided to have a mid-life crisis after all?" she comments. "Gonna buy a shiny red sports car?"
I scoff. "I'm not going to trade the Camaro for some plastic-engined rice burner."
"Younger woman?" she offers, not even having the grace to look worried.
"You're practically an embryo compared to me," I remind her, having another guilty flash of her eighth-grade face. Which was only five fucking years ago. I'm not the one who should be looking for someone younger in this relationship.
That reminds me that now would probably be a great time to stop being a dickhead, so I brush my knuckles conciliatorily down the delicate curve of her cheek.
"I already have the hottest girl and the hottest car." I give her a cocky smile. "And I'm rich as fuck. I'm going to Disneyland, baby."
Elena's face falls. "You do want to move, huh? You said you were happy, and it seemed like you were having fun downstairs, but it's not quite the same as what you're used to, is it?"
Words stick in my throat. The last thing I want to do is make her feel bad, and I don't know how to tell her that I want to want what I used to have.
But I don't.
She touches my arm hesitantly, her forehead adorably crinkled. I'm such a dick, I even like that she worries about me. I wish I could punch myself in the face right now.
"I was serious, Damon. If you're not happy here, we can–" her voice catches but she pushes past it. "We can do something else. We can go somewhere else. I can get a job so I can afford to fly back to check on Jeremy on weekends. Maybe Kyle would move in here after all, if I asked him again."
I kiss her to stop her promises, slipping a hand around the back of her neck underneath her hair. The feel of her skin under my fingers grounds me and suddenly it's not that hard to remember why I'm in a bathroom with pink-flowered soap. Because I've felt more joy in the last week than in the last decade.
She pulls back just a little, resting her forehead against mine. "Damon?"
I know what she's asking.
"I fucking hate origami," I warn her.
"Um, okay?" she says, probably already mentally stocking the basement cell with fresh sheets and a cooler of blood for my next stint down there.
I know this girl. She's sweet and insanely empathetic, and the stubbornest fucking creature on the planet that doesn't have hooves. I could be in for weeks of big, brown-eyed looks and well-intentioned, poorly executed cheer-me-up cooking if I don't tell her what's wrong.
I don't know who told her that cookies were the correct pacifier for a displeased predator, but I should remove their digestive system. Poetic justice for all the tile-hard cookies I've had to ingest in the last year.
"Has Caroline been bugging you to help with stuff for the wedding again?" She sighs. "I'll do whatever origami she needs, Damon, and I swear I won't let her guilt-trip you about it. You shouldn't let her get to you. You know she's half out of her mind over this wedding."
"That's only because my brother is too stupid to know that she'd be happier if he would have given her a budget," I snap, stalking across the room to crank on the shower to double our noise buffer. "I made potato salad," I complain to Elena.
She gives me a look that indicates her list of supplies for the basement cell just got a few items longer.
"I'm good," I say pointedly. "At Pictionary."
Her brow crinkles further. "Damon, you're good at everything."
"I knew Donovan's work schedule," I practically spit at her.
"So? It hasn't changed in ages, and you're at the Grill all the time."
I look at the ceiling. Stefan tried to warn me about this months ago. Apparently having a girlfriend means you have to talk about your feelings.
I'm not quite sure why the world works like this. To me, it makes about as much sense as using a duck to start your car. And yet here I am, the proverbial feathery neck in my fist, beak halfway to the ignition.
Maybe JC Penney's sells croquet sets. I can pick one up while I'm buying myself a fucking sundress and a matching set of Mary Janes.
"Elena," I tell her patiently. "Do you know what I got in the mail the other day?"
She looks like she needs an aspirin. "The new boots you wanted?"
"No. I got an envelope that said: 'Damon Salvatore, you may have already won $5000 and a Blu-Ray player!' Accompanying a set of address labels with kittens on them and a suggestion that I donate to the Humane Society." I blink at her, waiting for her to connect the dots.
"You're upset about junk mail?" she asks incredulously. "Live people get junk mail, dead people get junk mail, undead people get junk mail. That doesn't mean you have to move to a drafty mansion in Transylvania. You'd probably get junk mail there, too."
I glare at the fuzzy bathroom rug. "At least in Transylvania I could eat the mailman."
Elena laughs softly and I turn my scowl on her instead. "You know, I think I'm gonna bag this dog and pony show and head for the Grill. Catch you later."
I reach for the doorknob but she catches my hand.
"I think I know what this is about," she says, fighting a smile. "You think you're losing your edge because we haven't had to kill anyone in a few weeks."
"Thank you, Dr. Gilbert," I tell her sardonically. "Did you consider that I might actually have a pathological hatred for board games and family barbeques but was going along with them in a fairly transparent attempt to get laid?"
"Yeah, because you have to work so hard for that," she scoffs. "Listen, Damon, if a werewolf came through that bathroom door right now you'd have their internal organs sorted out on the floor in order of size before I even realized what was happening. The only thing that's changed is that now you'd do that for anybody in this house, not just me." She squeezes my hand, dropping her voice. "That doesn't mean you're going soft. It means you have a family now. A family that loves you every bit as much as you love them."
"Elena, I love you," I remind her. "I want you to have your friends and family around because they make you happy. But if you start listening for me to chime in on the chorus of Kumbaya, you might be disappointed."
Just because I want to kill her friends less frequently than I used to doesn't mean that I'm going to buy us all matching BFF necklaces. It sure as shit doesn't mean I love them. Though it doesn't explain the temporary insanity of the disgusting potato salad. I rub the tattoo on my forearm, my left eye starting to twitch.[2]
"I know you," she reminds me softly. "You're always going to be the kind of guy who would cut off his right foot for Caroline but would never tell her she looked good in her new dress if she didn't, even if it was what she really wanted to hear. You're the same, Damon. And you've completely changed, all at the same time." She kisses me softly on my unresisting lips and then hops off the counter.
"If you need to break something, try to make it a window. Those are covered under the homeowner's insurance."
She slips out before I can respond, which is probably a good thing. I crank off the water in the sink and the tub. I need some blood in its original packaging, and I need to get the hell out of suburbia. I open the door to Elena's room so I can drop out her window and skip Vampire Barbie's rant when she realizes I'm bailing on her precious tournament. Honestly, it's like the girl doesn't know she's going to lose.
I hear them as soon as I turn off the water.
"Is everything okay?" Jeremy asks in a low voice.
I've really got to teach that boy how to sound casual, because when he tries to force it, his voice skitters all sideways like he's talking to the first girl in school to sprout breasts.
"Is he pissed because he was having fun or because he was being less jerkish than usual?" asks Caroline impatiently. "Seriously, Stefan, I don't know how somebody like you managed to have such an emotional retard for a brother."
"If you wouldn't have made such a big deal about the potato salad, he'd have been fine," Elena hisses.
"What, so now I'm in trouble for being nice?" Caroline snaps, her voice climbing. "You threatened to hit me with a lawn chair for being mean to him earlier! Which incidentally, is probably what it is going to take to get him to admit he's happy."
"You want to pick a fight or you want me to do it?" Kyle asks, loudly crunching a potato chip.
"I'll do it," Stefan volunteers.
Fuck.
If there's anything more humiliating than being predictable, it's being wrong.
I glower at Elena's window, and then turn toward the stairs.
It's almost worth it to see Elena's eyebrows hit her hairline when I saunter in and reach for the box of Pictionary cards. The rest of our family looks on warily as I cock my head at my brother.
"Is it still our turn?"
The corner of his mouth twitches up and he nods without comment.
"Well, it's about time." Caroline sniffs primly and crosses her legs as if she expected this all along. "I'd hate to ruin a good lawn chair on the likes of you."
[1] The sacred vampire hunter's oath was introduced in Desperate Love, only for hunters of "The Five." Once you promise to do something using the proper wording you can't help but follow through, somewhat like compelling yourself.
[2] This is a reference to a tattoo Damon has in Desperate Love, which is my character-adjusted variation on Ian S.'s small forearm tattoo. Damon's is an Italian phrase that roughly translates to "Don't bullshit yourself."