And ten other chapters to come, ten!


Each a monster, part 9: Human in body only

Damon and Alaric left Philadelphia in the early morning. The vampire had been sulking for hours when they finally arrived in Boston. Luckily for Ric, the two of them hadn't been in the same car, since the hunter had to give his back to his family, and Damon wasn't willing to let go of his Camaro, not that anyone would blame him for that. Actually, their parting was the very reason the vampire had been pouting.

Ric managed to get them a room in a motel, even with Damon almost leaning against his back and whispering to his ear all the naughty things they could have done in the car if the hunter had agreed to leave his behind. Refraining himself from punching the vampire in the guts, Alaric ignored the tales of the wonderful blowjobs and pornographic shows he had missed. The receptionist gave them a weird look, and a couple of customers blushed when their eyes met. Damon grinned like a mad man at that, and the hunter promised to himself that he'd make his boyfriend pay for his behavior.

They fought for over an hour in the bedroom, somehow ended up almost beheading each other, Damon admitted to having made a promise to Ric's parents, Alaric went pale, the vampire said something stupid, got his left arm broken, whined for another hour, got his "treat" as compensation, complained that it wasn't exactly a punishment for the hunter, that he'd better cancel any sexual activity from his schedule to make Alaric pay for his actions.

The man sighed and turned, resting on his side to see Damon better.

"We're going to need some rules if we want this to work."

"Such as?"

"You don't ask to be fucked in front of people to tease me, and I don't break your bones. You stay discreet about our relationship, I mean, decent, in public, and I don't stab you when I think you're annoying. This kind of things."

The vampire frowned, falsely offended.

"Do you think I'm a slut? I don't go around naked, as far as I know, though I concede to be a flirt."

"Then, Mister Flirt, what do you think of smacking someone's ass in front of a receptionist?"

Damon's grin had gotten so large the hunter was wondering if it wasn't larger than his face.

"Scandalous."

"What about pressing one's ever happy dick against someone else's hips while pretending to be picking up a fallen paper?"

Alaric's eyes were locked on Damon's. Still, he could feel his lover's fingers running on his stomach.

"Shameful."

"Strangely enough, that's what you've been doing this evening, if I recall."

"Maybe you'll want to punish me for being shameless, then? There's nothing a little discipline can't correct, or so I have heard."

And there it was. Ric doubted anything could be done about Damon's bad flirting habit, but well. He wasn't going to condemn the vampire's urges to have sex, as long as it was with him only. Not right now, at least. Maybe, with some time, the novelty of being fucked by Ric would wear off, and Damon wouldn't constantly be begging for it.

The hunter surely hoped it would happen, sooner rather than later, or he'd die from exhaustion before the end of the month. As long as Damon wouldn't get bored with him, it would be for the best.

"I blame the vampire libido, the fact that we're both so utterly sexy, and my love for you."

Alaric rolled his eyes and launched a surprise attack on his lover, who suddenly discovered himself to be pinned to the bed with both the hunter's strength and a fierce kiss.

When they woke up the day after, Alaric got himself dressed, and asked the vampire to wait for him at his parents' house. He wanted to go and see Landyn alone. They had to... talk about some things she wouldn't want anyone else to know about, even if Ric wouldn't hide any of it from Damon.

No need to make the Saltzmans aware of the existence of vampires, what would eventually happen if the head of the family decided they'd be better off with the knowing people sent to the their early graves. Ric wasn't eager to know how many Saltzmans Damon and him could kill before being killed.

Oh, and he might need to threaten Theodoric, at some point. Hopefully he wouldn't forget that one.

The hunter arrived at the main house around ten o'clock. He passed by three of his remote cousins in the hall, and all of them were giving him weird looks. If he hadn't known that the family members usually stuck together, he'd have feared one of them would backstab him.

Ric knocked on the door of Landyn's office and waited. He heard some noise coming from inside, confirming that his aunt was in there, then a voice called for him to come in.

Landyn was alone in her office, looking a bit disheveled if not tired. Alaric guessed it meant she had stayed up all night, and that it was what the cold-blooded Head of the Saltzman Family looked like after a sleepless night. He wondered if he looked that way too when he didn't sleep but guessed it wasn't the case. He was a heartless murderer, after all, not a robot. As any human being, he was grumpy when he didn't get to sleep every night.

Landyn looked up from the pieces of paper she was glaring at.

"Alaric. I heard you did a good job."

The man shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the issue.

"It was all over yesterday's news, in Philadelphia. What I don't understand, is why you didn't call me right away. Or, at least, yesterday, since right after the murder could have been a bit suspicious if ever the police were to take at look at my phone calls..."

"I got sidetracked."

His aunt stared at him for several minutes, but Alaric ignored her. She'd have to do with that elusive answer. There were many ways he could have been unable to call, such as, with the police on his trail. And he wasn't going to give her a full report of his activities since he had finished his task.

Landyn eventually sighed and turned her attention back to the files on her desk.

Ric was about to leave when she looked up again.

"I would appreciate it if you could look into..."

The man stopped her almost immediately.

"I won't."

His aunt stayed silent, waiting for more. No use to hope and see her dumbfounded, or at least surprised, she was Landyn bloody Saltzman.

Alaric would have liked to take a deep breath but he didn't want to look like he needed to gather courage before making his point. In his family one had to stand firm if thye wanted to be heard.

"You asked me to kill Theo's copycat, and I did it. I won't do more. Your problems with the police aren't mine, though I'd be affected if they went and discovered our family issues. Still, there is no way they'd think our family to be really cursed, and so they wouldn't believe all of us are killers. Even if they did, most of us are protected by the circumstances of our killings. I did it to protect a child, you did it when someone tried to kill you, Cassandre did it when someone tried to rape her, my father did it while he was a soldier. Only a handful of our people would be in real trouble, such as Theodoric, who never reported the murder."

Alaric held his tongue for a while after that, but the hell with the niceties, he still had something to say. He knew Landyn wouldn't like it, but he also knew she wouldn't have anything to say since he was right.

"And frankly, Theo caused this mess with his, what does he call it, already, ah yes, job, so he could at least try and help. Last time I saw him, he seemed pretty smug for someone who almost had us exposed. I get it that having him meddle with the police when he is in fact the culprit in a case that has been dragging on for years wouldn't be wise, but it doesn't mean he has a right to belittle everyone else when they are covering his ass in the first place."

Landyn was still looking at him, and Ric was surprised when he saw her sighing.

"You know about the scar being a seal, so I should as well tell you about this."

The hunter grew more attentive. With what he had heard, from Galswinthe and Elijah, during the last months, it was possible that he already knew what she was going to reveal to him. But Landyn was the head of the Saltzman Family, last heirs to the Falkenbach Family and its curse, and she knew about the supernatural reality of their condition. Her input could never be irrelevant.

"When Theodoric killed that man who had kidnapped him for ransom, it took us three days to find him. The seal was put on too late, and that's why Theo is worst than any of us, if not necessarily the strongest. His... human qualities have been wiped out, at least some of them. We, Saltzmans, Falkenbachs, whatever, have no feelings when it comes to death and pain, but we still are able to feel shame, pity, and other human emotions as long as it has nothing to do with killing, hurting, fighting. Theodoric... lacks some of those feelings."

Alaric's mind and reason fought for a short time with his disgust for his cousin, and if in the end he was feeling a bit sorry for Theodoric, he still loathed the man as much as he could. No matter the reasons, Theo was a murderer, a serial killer, a hitman above anything else.

Damon, at least, was trying to do better, and if he had killed many people, he had also been struggling with his love for a manipulative bitch. Which wasn't an excuse either.

But Damon, unlike Theo, could improve. He was a vampire, and if given some of the love he had never really gotten for himself, the human being he had been before could be revived up to some point.

Theodoric...

Was human in body only, as far as Alaric was concerned.

"You do realize that it makes him all the more dangerous. From what you just told me, he's basicaly a psychopath when we are simply remorseless. The worst being that he has our Falkenbach instincts on top of it."

Landyn winced when she heard him talking about their ancestors, meaning he knew about them too, but quickly rebuilt her neutral mask.

Alaric was definitely an interesting young nephew, and his being contumacious about the family ways was actually a good thing. If she could get him to care about their family more than about their killers inheritance, he may be a good choice to continue her work.

But it wasn't the time to think about it. She wasn't dead yet, and choosing a new head of the family could wait. Moreover, coercing the young man into the position would do no good.

"Listen, Alaric. No matter what you think about him, I believe keeping Theo by our side is the best I can do, besides killing him right now, right here. At least, I have some control over him, and we are more than able to contain him if he ever were to go rabid."

Ric mumbled something about getting rid of the hindrance, but didn't insist.

When he left, he asked of her to leave him alone.

Both of them smiled a cold smile, knowing very well how unlikely it was to happen.

The hunter met Theo on his way out of the property.

Some disguised threats were politely exchanged, and Ric left.

When he arrived at his parents' home, he was quite pleased with himself, and noticed with a delighted surprise that Diane and Edward Saltzman were already aware of their son's relationship with Damon, and totally okay with it.

The four of them spent a great evening.

They laughed, talked about his childhood, and Ric got to see Damon blush when Diane complimented how good they looked together, and how good their looks were anyway.

Alaric might have blushed too, but it was only his mum being his mum.

Damon and Alaric slept in his old room.

Keeping Damon from being sex driven even in his parents' house wasn't easy.

When the hunter woke up the next morning, the vampire was sleeping next to him, in the sleeping bag instead of in the bed Ric had left him.

He looked frighteningly cute.

They ate breakfast with Diane and Edward, then it was time to go.

Mystic Falls wasn't the only trouble they had, as Ric had learned during their stay in the first motel. They still had to deal with a rabid Stefan, out there in the country, but where exactly, no one knew – and, more than that, knowing might not do any good.

Still, when they left Boston in Damon's blue Camaro, Alaric felt at peace.

Maybe life could be good, after all.

Good enough for a Falkenbach and a vampire to live somehow peacefully, at least.