Being back behind the bar again for work meant life was good. As stubborn as Bella was, she still saw that I was more useful serving drinks than forcing pleasant smiles to my face when waiting on customers and giving them their ordered food in time.
As I placed a glass of beer in front of one of the many customers today, their faces having begun melting together into one blurry mass, causing me to rarely remember any of them, I noticed a slightly familiar man approach the bar counter out in the corner of my eye. Although, I didn't pay any real attention to him until he seated himself on the high stool right in front of me, leaning over the counter.
"Hi, niece!" he basically screamed straight into my ear.
"Oh, fuck no!" I sighed, put a hand over my ringing ear and turned my back against him.
"That's not how you greet your family," Uncle John playfully scolded, earning a scoff. I moved away from him to rearranging some of the glasses on the counter a few feet away, my back still turned to him, but his annoying voice followed me anyway. "Come on now, Parker!" John nagged. "Haven't you missed your old uncle even a little bit?" I turned to fully face him, crossing my arms in front of my chest in the process.
"No. I really haven't."
"Okay, okay." John lifted his hands in a surrendering gesture. "I get it. I'm not gonna occupy you when you're clearly working." He nodded towards the already perfectly arranged glasses with a small grin. Dick. "But we need to talk about the Founders' Day Kick-off Party."
"What about it?" I sighed and stopped pretending to be busy plucking with the glasses.
"You're going," John stated seriously.
"Uhm. No, I'm not," I retorted with a frown. I'd already expressed my disinterest in that party to Jenna, being more than tired with all the Mystic drama; but if John wanted me to go? No-huh. "I couldn't care less about that crap! As you know."
"Really?" John raised his brows, doubtfully. "That's not what I've heard. Say, from Liz." Biting my tongue, I didn't answer. Maybe the Sheriff caving to give me a foot into the Council wasn't so odd, after all. But if John wanted me there, I'd rather stay away. John leaned over the black, shiny counter again, his expression serious as he lowered his voice. "Gilbert is an important name in this town, all of the family members needs to be there."
"Well, it's a good thing that I'm not a real Gilbert then," I bit back with a fake smile.
"That doesn't count and you know it. You're still going," John insisted. As always, he ignored the fact I was adopted, just like in the past insisting that I'd be brought in on the 'Gilbert family secret'. Speaking of which.
"If this is about the town's little problem," I leaned in closer in turn and spoke in a hushed, "then I can tell you right now that I'm not helping." Grabbing a wet cloth, I began wiping of the counter whilst glaring back at John.
"It's your duty as a–"
"I already said I don't care," I cut off and rubbed on an extra persistent spot on the otherwise shiny surface. "I never have. Which you already know."
John sighed and finally sat down again, giving me room to wipe the counter in front of him. "Not caring and not believing are two very different things," he pointed out.
"Fine. I believe, but I don't give a tiny rat's ass about it!" The annoying spot finally faded and I could restore the counter to its full glory. At least rubbing on the spot had given an output for some of the aggression building up thanks to John's presence, but now I lacked one.
"You never told me what made you change your mind," John realized with a frown.
"That's 'cause we don't talk unless you force me to," I spat. "Plus, it's none of your business," I added and avoided his gaze by continuing wiping the now perfectly clean bar counter.
"Okay, little Miss Charming," John said in his normal, chirpy and annoying tone. "But I expect to see you at the Kick-off." He pointed at me expectantly.
"Not happening," I sing-songed back.
"You're gonna want to be on the right side, Parker. There's bigger trouble ahead. If you care about your sister whatsoever, you should be at the Founders' event." What did he mean by that cryptic statement?
"That sounds like a threat," I remarked with my forehead in a deep frown.
"It's a fact," John spoke seriously, igniting a suspicion within me. What did he know?
"If you know something about Elena being in danger–" I began, a threat forming on the tip of my tongue.
"You'll find out, if you show up tonight." John interrupted.
"Why is it so important?" I groaned with a roll of my eyes.
"Think of it as a way of reestablishing our trust," John spoke in the same cryptic matter. What was with him today?
I let out a scoff. "Yeah! Like there was any of that before!"
"Just think about it and you can decide later," he finished and got up from the stool. One last stare was focused on me, before he left.
My forehead in creases, I followed his back as he exited the Grill in big strides. He was definitely hiding something. Then again, he'd always known more than he let on, for as long as I could remember.
When I was younger, he'd always put me off with his cryptic words and stories about the most occult and strange. As I'd gotten older, he'd insisted on telling me more about the Gilbert legacy. Mostly, a bunch of crap; or so the eighteen year old me had thought when he'd tried to force the big secret about vampires on me, much to my parents dissatisfaction. During one family dinner especially, I had accused him of being crazy before storming off from the table. Thankfully, I'd left town for college soon after.
His stories of vampires were just plain nonsense! Them being burned in a church back in the 1800s after the town had gathered them there? RIGHT! After reluctantly having read old Johnathan Gilbert's journals, which my Uncle John had forced on me one time when babysitting, I had dismissed them as a load of crap written by a lunatic.
However, later, I was proven dead wrong one night, shortly after arriving in New York.
It had been a dark night in October, and I'd stayed late at a bar in a more, hmm, well, unpleasant part of the city. Having been the last remaining customer, the manager had tried to kick me out several times, but I had refused to budge, no matter how much he nagged, shoved or yelled. Eventually, he just gave up, dimmed the lights and told me to stay away from his booze, leaving me alone in the small, nasty bar.
Or, well, almost alone. Neither of us had noticed the man sitting in one of the corner booths, and I probably wouldn't have seen him at all, hadn't he walked right into me. He'd tried playing his behavior off as flirty, since he was young and hot in that bad boyish way, I didn't mind. But being pretty drunk, as I of course was, I hadn't felt like taking it any further. Which was why I began squirming against his grip when he refused to leave me alone. My mouth's bad habit of spitting nasty words had existed back then as well, which had seemed to be my only weapon against the man, until my fingers found a convenient wooden spoon on the bar counter he had lifted me up on.
As red veins had began playing under his eyes, along with the whites also taking on the same deep, purple-red color, I panicked and jammed the shank of the wooden spoon into his stomach. Whether it was pure luck, or maybe those archery lessons where I'd practised my aim as a kid, I didn't know, but somehow I managed to pierce the man's heart. Instead of his fangs digging into my neck, he gasped for breath whilst veins began to pop all over his body as his skin turned ash-gray, making him slide off me to fall dead on the floor.
It had been a shocking experiences as it was, but the revelation that the supernatural world was real had been even worse. I'd lost it and bailed the scene, contemplating on the stories my uncle had told me about vampires as I'd hurried down the dark streets in the cold autumn air.
Before this, I had never considered that there was more to this world than what met the naked eye. But somehow, in that very moment, I decided that I wanted to know more. The first thought that happened to pop into my head involved my biological parents; don't ask me why, it's some sort of weird obsession adopted kids have. An insane idea that their mysterious past was somehow connected to this supernatural madness began to take form in my mind. I decided I would find out the truth, now matter how much I had to lie to my family in the process. I certainly wasn't going to go running back and admit my mistake to John, admit I had been wrong.
Although I think he had sensed that I knew more than I was letting on when the subject was brought up at a family dinner soon after, but Mom had by then made him swore to keep me out of the supernatural business until I was ready, so he had been forced to leave it alone. Until today, apparently. Which made me wonder: why now?
Worst part of the day: making dinner after a ten hour long shift without any break. Honestly, I was beginning to question the working agreement I had with the Grill; the hours seemed kind of unhealthy from time to time. But since I still got paid a decent amount of money and had access to free alcohol, I could live with the job.
After my failed attempt at cooking, I was forced to take a shower and scrub away burnt smell from my skin. This might sound like a simple task, but not in my bathroom. It was like a frickin war zone! I rarely went in there unless I absolutely had to.
During my quick shower, the water changed from icy cold to burning hot every few seconds, leaving my tanned skin with big, red spots every here and there. Pleasant. Carefully, I stepped out of the bathroom and into my walk-in-closet, avoiding the chipped shards of the once white tile spread over the floor in the process.
A movement out in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I narrowed my gaze to scout for the cause of the motion. Thanks to the apartment's layout, I had a perfect view of my bed as I stood by the door that lead into the bathroom and spied through my walk-in-closet before me. The light in the bedroom slash living room was dimmed, but with a click the lamp next to my unmade bed lit up; and I wasn't the one to press the button. A smirking Damon was the cause of this, and his satisfied grin only grew wider when he noticed the mere towel wrapped around my still wet body.
"Am I interrupting?" he asked with a amused look and a raise of his brows. Instead of bothering to answer, I only walked through the oblong, baby blue room and slammed the door shut in his face.
Sighing, I slipped into a pair of long, black pajama pants and a soft, navy blue sweatshirt. I knew getting drunk and being carried home by Damon would come back to bite me! Well, not literally. But if it hadn't been for that night, then Damon wouldn't have had a clue to where I lived. Or maybe he would've found out some other way. I guess this was doomed to happen to matter what.
As I stepped out of the walk-in-closet and closed the door behind me with a loud, echoing bang, I greeted Damon with a neutral look and a short nod.
"What? Not happy to see me?" Damon smirked and scooted from the middle of my bed to jump up from it, before moving closer.
"You're the second person to say something like that today." I swiveled on my sock clad heel when Damon got too close, moving towards my kitchenette instead.
"I'm not the first?" Damon exclaimed and gaped at me with a hand placed over his heart. Rolling my eyes, I turned to the mountain of dishes before me, all covered with burned residues, both the plates and the pots.
"What do you want?" I directed towards Damon with a sigh, burying my makeup-free face in my hands, letting them fall as I felt a whoosh of air blow my damp hair off my neck. Damon blocked my sight over my dish-filled sink by suddenly standing inches in front of me. My heart bounced in my chest, but I refused to take a step back, my nose only separated from Damon's chin by a thin barrier of air.
"Do you mind?" I frowned at Damon's question, and he motioned for me to sit down on the padded armchair a few feet away in the living room part of my studio apartment. "Sit. Relax," he instructed.
Full of doubt, I slowly obeyed and took a seat on the soft cushions, my legs draping over one of the chair's arms. Damon slipped of his black leather jacket and threw it at me, proceeding with rolling up the sleeves of his black shirt all the way to his elbows as he turned to the heap of dishes.
"Still ignoring your sister?" he casually asked, moving the pile to the light wooden counter before turning on the tap. Warm, steaming water flowed up from the sink and filled the small area consisting of the U-shaped kitchenette and the tiny hall. What was this nice act? Damon washing my dirty dishes? Come on! He was up to something. He had to be.
"Yep," I answered and tossed Damon's leather jacket over to my couch instead. "Why?" He hesitated for a moment. The scene unfolding before me was odd: Damon – Damon Salvatore! – with a neon green dish brush in his hand. The muscles in his jaws tensed slightly as he stared into the foaming water filling the sink.
"There's something you should know."
"So you're telling me that Jeremy is suspicious about Vicki's death. A problem." I raised a finger. "You snapped my uncle John's neck and threw him off a balcony–" Damon's face scrunched into a grimace. "– which we'll have words about later," I warned. "But then he came back to life. Not a problem, but odd." A second finger was raised. "Thanks to the same type of ring that brought Alaric back from the dead when you killed him a while back. Also a clear problem." A third finger shot up. "And to top it all of; Stefan is a bloodaholic who can barely control his urges to rip someone's throat out!" I finished and raised a fourth finger, gripping them all with my free hand. "Did I get everything?" I tilted my head to the side.
Damon was long done with my dishes, now drying them with a towel. "Yeah, sounds about right."
"Man! I missed quite the party!" I exclaimed and leaned back against the chair's armrest. Maybe I should have taken John's advice and attended the Kick-off thing. But even if I had swallowed my stubbornness, work would still have gotten in the way. "But why are you telling me this?" I furrowed my brows. "It's not like we're friends or something."
"Aren't we?" Damon inquired nonchalantly, placing a dry glass on the counter. "If you think about it, we've got the potential for it," he pointed out. "Or something more," he added with a wink. Of course he had to go there.
"Fine." I ignored the last part. "But there's still a whole line of people to share this information with. Stefan, Alaric, Elena… Why me?"
Damon frowned. "Because I know how it feels to bicker with a sibling. You still deserve to know these things." He spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Was it odd that I didn't agree? This whole thing seemed very out of character for Damon. It was too… nice. Showing up when I was in nothing but a towel, not doing anything besides dropping a few comments. Cleaning my dishes, filling me in on everything. It felt extremely strange. But I guess I just wasn't used to a friendship, or whatever you'd like to call it. Damon and the word 'friend' didn't really go hand in hand for me. At all.
"Okay…" A thought hit me. "Wait, you said that Stefan was having trouble controlling his bloodlust. Why did it sound as if that wasn't a problem to you?" I questioned and leaned forward to wrap my arms around my legs and scrutinize Damon.
"It's about time Stefan accepts his vampire side," Damon retorted, getting a little annoyed. Now everything was steering back to normal. Although he was still standing in my kitchen with a towel in his hands, placing a dry glass in the top cabinet. "I'll admit, the timing could have been better. But what can I do?"
"Ehrm, I don't know, LOCK HIM UP?" It didn't take an Einstein to figure that out. Murderous vampire plus a party filled with living, breathing people full of pumping blood: throw him in a cell. Easy as that!
"Aren't you overreacting a little?" Damon said with a wry smirk.
"Aren't you underreacting? Hmm?" Damon still looked doubtful at my sudden heroism. "I don't care about the 'innocent people'," I sighed and made quotation marks in the air. "However! I have a sister who just so happens to date said blood-craving vampire," I explained in a forced calm tone. Damon only stared at me. This was going nowhere! "You know what! I'm just going to ignore the fact that you think it's okay that my little sister's boyfriend is a bloodaholic who could rip her neck open at any given moment." I paused to breathe. "The rest however…"
This would be a good time to fill in the blanks for Damon with the information that the Gilbert family secret had provided me with. The very same info John had flashed in the Salvatore's face before necks were snapped.
"Jer still has a thing with Anna, which might explain why he is fishing for clues about Vicki's death. It wouldn't surprise me if he's figured out some of it out already… But everything John knows, he knows from stuff like journals that have been passed down through generations. My guess is that the ring belongs in that category."
"He did say he gave one to Isobel," Damon butted in. Huh, that piece of information must have slipped the vampire's mind earlier.
I raised my brows. "So John gave his ring to Elena's birth mother? This is getting more and more complicated by the minute!" I grunted and rubbed my forehead whilst resting my elbows against my knees. An annoying headache had began taking form.
"Tell me about it!" Damon scoffed.
"Anyway. That means Alaric got his ring from Isobel, which proves that everything connects to the Gilbert legacy crap," I concluded and slapped my hands down on my thighs.
Why was I even getting mixed up in all this crap and helping Damon? I wanted to stay as far away from this confusing business as possible! My only motivation for intervening had been Elena, which was no longer a good one since she had apparently decided to tell Damon about Stefan's blood problem instead of me; her own frickin sister! Because he knew more about vampire's habits and cravings better, since he was one? LOAD OF CRAP! I had just as much knowledge about vampires as the Salvatore! But getting off subject. The point was: Elena's a bitchy sister who refused to tell me things, while Damon showed up to fill me in on everything without any clear hidden agenda; besides maybe wanting to catch me in pajamas shorts, not sorry to disappoint there. It was sad day when I had to admit that a murderous and psychopathic vampire was better at retaining relations than my own sister.
"Okay, I'm done," I sighed, swinging my legs down from the chair's armrest. "I'm out," I added and held my hands up. "This is all just too much to handle after midnight." I grabbed Damon's jacket from the couch to hand it to him. "Thanks for dropping by and updating me. Don't make this unannounced thing a habit," I warned with my finger in his face. Damon's smirk showed that this was exactly what he'd been planning. Great.
"Good night, Parker," his silky smooth voice spoke as he held out his hand for me. I hesitated for a moment, but decided to be polite and shake it.
As I moved to do this, I was pulled closer with a rapid motion and crashed into Damon's chest, our faces once again inches apart. Damon's gaze studied my face closely, fluttering over certain features and watching others carefully, especially lingering over my lips; or maybe I figured he did, since I couldn't stop staring at his, they happened to be in height with my eyes. Forcefully, I swallowed a lump forming in my throat as a tingling sensation occurred where Damon's hand was wrapped around my wrist. Of course he noticed this, only smirking as he released me and drew back.
"Hope to see you back in the game soon," he added with a wink, before leaving me stunned, right in the middle of my apartment.
When the door shut behind him, my thoughts were unmuted. I stood frozen, listening to them freaking out over what that had been, as the realization slowly crept up on me.
All in all, I was pretty much fucked.