Moved on to 2x04
I've got a shitty day. So there is some shitty chapter.
Mason pisses me off.
My right eye encountered a door handle something like a week ago. I might get a scar and I'm awfully happy about it. I must be nuts.
Adjusting to our reality, part 6: If he wanted to
Damon was messing around with Mason Lockwood more than he should have. Dog and wolf jokes, really, who was he kidding? Even Jenna was aware something was going on, Ric could see it in her eyes.
He didn't like to hide stuff from her, but his last love-interest – whom he had married, for God's sake – had left him because of some supernatural bullshit. He wasn't willing to give it a try once again, certainly not this soon.
Not that he feared Jenna would leave him to become a vampire, he'd have to be completely insane to believe such a thing, because that turn of events would be so out of character it didn't fit even in a fantasy. But as he had told Vanessa Monroe, knowing of the supernatural was kind of very, very dangerous. He definitely didn't want Jenna to die.
...And he didn't want her to think he was a completely delusional vampire nerd who used to go around staking people while being persuaded they were centuries-old monsters.
Alaric may have some mental issues, but he wasn't insane.
The teacher almost burst into laughter in the middle of a game. Jenna seemed to be really into it, Damon used it to tease Mason, and Mason did his best not to show he was kind of annoyed. And here he was, Alaric Saltzman, vampire hunter, high school history teacher during his spare time, thinking about the negligible fact that he almost lived up to the standards of psychopathy.
He glanced at the white board where Damon had drawn an almost wolf-like creature dancing in a tutu. Subtlety wasn't exactly what he excelled at for the time being – not that he was trying.
Damon thought he was doing his part just great, but, werewolf sitting on the couch put aside, there was something that bothered him about Ric. He was just this close to pretty certain his friend was withholding information from him.
What exactly, he had no idea.
He had tried everything. Heart rate was steady. Eyes never looked away. Answers to his questions were always given in due time.
It was like such a thing as hesitation had completely disappeared from the hunter's body language.
And that was exactly what gave Ric away.
Who could be so perfectly and genuinely attentive that they were never ever caught off guard – unless they were being careful? No one. No vampire, no werewolf, let alone a human. There definitely was something Alaric was being cautious about, but the hell if he knew what exactly.
Being so unfazed should be forbidden. Damon hadn't found out anything, not even a hint. Seriously. There were no topic of conversation, no situation, no word that triggered the slightest reaction.
The hunter had been very inconspicuous when he had began to plot his revenge on the vampire, but that, that was the real deal. His prudent approach from back then was a piece of cake compared to now. And back then, it had been about his wife's murder. Not just any shit. What could possibly make Ric so wary of himself, Damon had no idea.
The probability for the teacher to have a dirty little secret just soared up in the polls.
Damon was so curious – and damn, how did Alaric manage to get him so curious about so many things? – that he almost forgot to piss off Mason Lockwood for a whole minute.
He had to catch up, seriously.
The dinner went smoothly. Elena and Caroline, who had joined them, were smiling almost honestly. Alaric, Jenna and Mason were exchanging high school and college stories. Damon was listening. He laughed a lot at the teacher who had apparently spent most of his teenaged years locked in his room or at the library and hadn't dared to bring his acne outside of a dark room. Some dog jokes were exchanged, until Alaric gave him a dark glare and he stopped.
Later he and Mason were alone.
The man just blurted it all out, and the vampire was pretty surprised to know that werewolves could more or less recognize vampires, whereas vampires couldn't even tell their own kind apart from human beings. He should definitely try to know more about that when he had time.
Right now, he was busy with the do-I-or-don't-I-kill-the-wolf game?
It was a very simple game. You just had to close your eyes and pick something amongst the cutlery.
A spoon, life. A fork, try again. A knife, death.
Fork. He'll try again later.
Ric entered the room where Damon had disappeared, slightly concerned. If his friend was going to murder someone tonight, the hunter would appreciate it not happening in his girlfriend's house. Or in his students' house. Or in his daughter-in-law's house. In other words, in the house they all were in right now – the best would be no murder at all, but Ric wasn't that optimistic.
The first thing he saw was Damon giving Mason Lockwood first and then him a crooked look while holding two silver knives.
"Ric! Grab these!"
It took him half a second to get what the vampire was doing.
Swearing in a low voice, Alaric raised his arm to catch the knive that was dangerously on its way to his left shoulder. He knew he should have ducked. But no. Instinct.
He stayed still for some time, taking a deep breath. He would not give in to anger. He would not.
The knife was stuck between his index and middle-finger. No cuts.
Right. This time, he could say he was definitely back to how he used to be before the accident.
"Damon, have you perhaps gone mental? Don't ever do that again."
The vampire saw a void in the hunter's eyes, which was not good news. Maybe he'd better behave. Alaric was right, it was dangerous. He wasn't even sure why he had done it in the first place.
Then it was time for Damon to say goodbye and leave, right behind Mason. A silver knife in hand, he waited a minute, then stabbed the werewolf in the chest. Burrying a blade in the heart of someone was something he didn't do often enough. That was pretty enjoyable. Metal against flesh. Flesh pierced with metal. Sharp, cutting knife pressed into a bloody wound.
He was barely readying himself to go back to the boarding house, whistling, when he saw the werewolf remove the blade from his torso and throw it away. There was blood on the knife, just as it should be, but the wound was disappearing.
Shit. No allergy to silver, then.
And even better, a threat. Made an enemy tonight, blah blah blah. The vampire could already hear Stefan's sermon. Diplomacy. Agreement. Cease fire. Not interested, thanks.
Damon did this thing with his eyes, as they said, and wondered if killing Mason Lockwood anyway, snapping his neck, for example, was such a bad idea. But Saint Stefan would be a pain in the ass some additional hours if he did. So he didn't.
He was being a good, obedient, vampiric brother. Maybe he could have a susucre as a reward.
Mason smirked, as he was now proven right about the vampire. He was an arrogant douche.
"You really don't have to be a monster to be inhumane. You and that Saltzman guy found each other just perfectly."
Damon frowned. Why was Alaric dragged into this, exactly?
Mason sneered, very pleased with himself.
"Don't tell me you never saw his eyes?"
"What about Ric's eyes?"
Damon was so not in the mood to play the stupid game. Since the wolf had decided to be an asshole, and no, Damon wouldn't acknowledge any responsibility in this decision, either he would spill it, either Damon would make him spill it.
"Come on, unless you're blind or madly in love with him, you surely noticed the way he's completely unreadable if he doesn't want you to know what he thinks."
"That doesn't make him inhumane, just surprinsingly good at lying."
"And there's also the fact that he has this emptiness in the depths of his eyes."
Damon restrained himself from reacting. He wasn't the only one who had seen it, then...
"You vampires use compulsion, but he has authority. Natural, overwhelming authority. Earlier, he told you to stop, and you obeyed. You weren't forced to, but you did."
"I did it because I didn't see any valid reason not to do it."
Damon snorted. He wasn't a slave, he was a goddamn vampire. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and no one would ever dictate his behavior. If he did what Ric had told him, it was only because he agreed with him. He had gone too far.
Mason Lockwood was only bullshitting him.
But was he?
The wolf squinted, amused as if he could sense how much Damon was feeling uncomfortable.
"You don't get it, do you?"
"You're only talking shit, so no, I don't get it. At all."
"Let me explain. Humans usually don't get it, when they're with people such as your pal, because their instinct has gone extinct for too many years. Even vampires don't usually get it, they are so full of themselves and rely too much on compulsion. But werewoves are instinctive creatures, we work with our guts, and as I can smell Death oozing out of you, I can tell you that this man would be a shark if only he wanted to."
The vampire ignored the bait. He had had his share of dumb moves for the night.
Yeah, Damon was dead, so it was pretty normal for him to ooze Death. Thank goodness he didn't stink of decomposing corpse. Anyone who had a problem with this could say it to his face, or just shut it. And franckly, the werewolf was a shitty werewolf, so he didn't have a say in the matter.
And where the hell did Mason think he was leading this conversation?
"If he wanted to, you said so yourself. Doesn't mean he is."
"He's oozing Death too, you know. Not the same way you do, but he does."
"Might be because I killed him once."
The vampire really tried to sound convincingly trivial, but he himself wasn't convinced. He kind of had remorse about this kill, now that he knew Alaric so well. Maybe his best friend ever.
Which reminded him...
"I still can't believe George was the same as you are... maybe he triggered his curse too, for what I know. Best friend my ass."
"So you're from the mid-eighteenth century. Good to know. And for your information, George Lockwood? He did. Now, let's go back to our discussion, shall we?"
Mason was really getting cocky, and Damon thought he could still kill him right now. After all, on a regular night such as this one, he was just a supernaturaly strong and fast man with healing capacities. Capacities that were nothing near as great as a vampire's. Blow off his head, and he would be nothing more than a bad memory.
Damon wondered what werewolf blood would taste like. Certainly horrible, with an aftertaste of fur. The vampire might has well try to get a drink from Ric for what it was worth.
He rejected the idea of taking a sip on the hunter, who was most likely to stake him in the guts if he only dared to try. But hell, he couldn't forget Ric's taste.
...And that was definitely not the time to think about it.
"We were having no conversation. You were simply trying to bullshit me about Alaric, even if I still don't get why. Now I'll be going. I don't want to hear you babbling nonsense anymore."
Damon turned away. This talk had been useless, and now he was in a bad mood.
He didn't halt when the werewolf's voice rose one last time.
"When I said he smelled of Death, I mean that he has already killed people."
The answer to this one was easy.
"Of course. He is a vampire hunter, after all."
Mason stayed silent.
Damon would have loved to see the surprise on his face, but he didn't want to show he was actually uneasy enough to need to prove – to himself as well as to Mason – that he was right. Right about what exactly, he didn't know. But right anyway. Damon loved being right.
The annoying voice rose once again to the vampire's great displeasure.
"That doesn't mean he never killed a human being. This man has no feelings, I tell you. The day you wake up, a stake sinking in your ribcage, pushed in by your very hands of your friend, you'll remember I warned you."
The werewolf really enjoyed pissing him off.
Maybe Damon should repay the favor, and kill him on the spot.
In the end he went back to Elena's. He had silverware to give back. Killing Mason could come later.
