One world apart, part 4: Join you on the Other Side
"Jeremy."
The teenager turned around in his bed, thinking something along the lines of "just five more minutes, Ric...". The day had been hellish, with the attacks on Tyler and all that. Apparently the culprit was this guy with the tattoo he had seen earlier at the Mystic Grill...
Jeremy's eyes shot open.
This had been Alaric's voice... but the teacher was dead. And it hadn't been a dream, unless his dream about Bonnie had turned out very strangely at some point to include his dead legal guardian.
So...
The teenager got rid of the blanket that was covering his head, and looked around his bedroom, in search of the ghostly form of Alaric. Sure thing, he found the teacher standing next to the door.
It wasn't the first time he was seeing the ghost, to say the truth. There had been that one time just after the hunter's death, when Alaric – and not the hunter, mind you, but Ric – had come into the house, and at first, the teenager had thought it was still his other, murderous personality. Then, not too long after that, Jeremy had seen the ghost watching over Damon, and, mostly, sighing in exasperation. They had talked once or twice, and each time Ric had tried to make it easier for him to accept all the deaths which a happened lately. Not an easy task, for sure.
"Ric, you're here! But... Why this late... or early, in fact, in the night?"
As he had said this, Jeremy had looked at his alarm clock. He was sure he wouldn't get to sleep again after that, but at least, he had had a fair amount of rest before the ghost had come to wake him up.
Just looking at Ric's ghost told the teenager the teacher was angry about something. "Something" was most likely raven-haired and blue-eyed. It could have been about the guy who had attacked the ceremony earlier this day, too, but Alaric looked exasperated, not worried. So, most likely Damon. As always.
Jeremy sighed. Of course, he didn't really hate the vampire anymore. That didn't mean they would become buddies anytime soon. True, he even kind of liked him. Damon wasn't a bad guy per se, though he often was a bad guy in acts. He meant well, and did the worst thing possible. Alright, even if Jeremy actually more or less appreciated the vampire, he just wasn't going to trust him. The guy had issues.
Alaric's smile was bent in a very curious shape, and obviously forced. Since he had died, and only Jeremy could see him, the ghost was doing less and less effort to control himself. There were some leftovers from him being a Saltzman, of course. But he was way more open in his body language than before.
"I'm sorry to wake you up, Jeremy, but Damon's dead drunk in the graveyard. Usually I'd say to leave him there, but it seems there's a maniac supernatural hunter in town, and I'd rather not have the idiot staked in his hangover."
See, what had he just thought? Jeremy was right, obviously; Damon Salvatore had issues. No one in their right mind would get drunk in the open when someone hell bent on making them disappear from the surface of the Earth was roaming about.
Even if Jeremy could understand why the vampire was doing this, and Alaric Saltzman himself was the main reason for this behavior, the two couldn't help but be exasperated. It wasn't as if Damon was doing this occasionally. He was continuously acting like a fool, these days. Him having a reason to do so didn't mean it was a good idea for all that.
The teenager got up and started to dress.
"I'll go."
Just before he left the room, he turned back to look at the ghost.
"Though if he died, he'd certainly join you on the Other Side, you know."
Alaric's ghost sneered a bit.
"Yes, he would. Too bad there is no way to see each other when you're here, unless you're a witch. Which I am not."
Jeremy shrugged.
"I'll see you there, I suppose?"
The ghost disappeared, and the teenager went on his way. Soon enough, he reached the cemetery, only to see a sleeping vampire on the teacher's grave. Ric was standing next to the vampire, utterly refusing to even look at his wretch of a boyfriend, and several empty bottles of alcohol were scattered around the grave.
Jeremy sighed, and tried to wake Damon up.
The vampire groaned, turned around, his face on the grave, this time, and nothing else happened.
Alaric snorted.
"If you have a stake with you, I advise you to try the guts. It wouldn't kill him, but you can be sure he would get up."
"And try to decapitate me thinking I'm an enemy? Thanks, but no thanks. I'll just... carry him to the boarding house."
"You can't carry him by yourself all the way."
"Fine! I'm calling Stefan."
So he did, and the younger Salvatore came to the graveyard not long after, grumbling something rude about over-grieving brothers. He had been busy enough dealing with Elena's new condition as a vampire and taking care of Alaric's disappearance, lately!
Stefan looked at his brother for half a minute, wondering if it wouldn't be better to just finish him now, rather than let him suffocate in his misery for one or two more decades. The younger vampire eventually snapped out of it, shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was not going to murder Damon because he was heartbroken. It was already something incredible enough, proving his brother still had a heart after all, and he wasn't going to get angry because of that. Definitely not.
Stefan pulled Damon up and onto his back, before asking Jeremy if it wouldn't be better to carry him to Alaric's loft, as the older vampire had all but taken residency there lately.
The teenager was about to say yes, wondering why he hadn't thought of that before, but Ric stopped him.
"It wouldn't do. There is a mad vampire hunter, ready to endanger normal people in his hunt, in town. It's not a guess to say that he understood there was something 'bloody' suspicious going on yesterday afternoon, at the ceremony, when Damon went to help Elena, and also something 'bloody' vampiric when the idiot just ripped the door off his truck. If he gets Damon's address, that is, mine, there's no telling he won't come for him. It would be wiser for him to stay at the boarding house, with Stefan and Elena."
Stefan watched, puzzled, as Jeremy stared at nothing in particular. After a time, the teenager looked back at the vampire, and repeated what Alaric had just told him.
"Alright, but can you tell me why you were spacing out?"
Jeremy cleared his throat, ill-at-ease.
"Erm, I was... listening to Ric. It's his idea. He's also the one who told me about your brother being... stoned in the cemetery."
Stefan's upper lip twitched at the mention of the teenager's ability to see ghosts. He hadn't thought that, since Alaric used to be human until just before his death, the teacher would be on the Other Side. But, the teacher hadn't been only turned into an Original before his death; he had also been born as a cursed human. As for a peaceful death...
From what he knew of the Other Side, Stefan believed all the supernatural creatures went there after their death, the interrogation mark being for cursed humans, them being up for discussion about being "creatures" or not. He also knew that, after a while, some could find peace and pass on. It was what had happened to Jeremy's previous girlfriend, Anna, and to her mother as well.
But Alaric had died just recently, and his death was anything but a peaceful one. His life, even, had been quite nightmarish, and Stefan didn't even know the details. He just knew that being a Falkenbach wasn't easy on those who tried to still behave as human beings, and not monsters. There was no way he'd have passed on so soon. So, of course, his ghost certainly was still around.
And Jeremy could see ghosts.
They had made a little research, with Bonnie's help and Anna's comments. Apparently, Jeremy could only see the ghosts of those whom he wished to see, and still, if these people didn't wish to speak to him, they could decide to evade his sight. Alaric had no reason to hide from the teenager, and the teenager was bound to think about him from time to time...
"Right... Well, then, I'll take him to the boarding house. Be careful, Jer. There's a mad hunter on the loose in town."
So they parted ways, and while Jeremy headed home, wondering about the fact that he was seemingly the only one able to see said hunter's tattoo, Stefan carried his brother back to his room, trailed by Alaric, who frowned in exasperation at the unconscious older vampire.
Stefan laid Damon on his bed, and made to leave the room.
Just as he was about to close the door behind him, he stopped, and looked back in his brother's room.
Was Ric there, somewhere?
Probably.
Unless the teacher was too angry with Damon's behavior, and so was now ignoring him. Totally plausible. It wouldn't be the first time.
Feeling a bit stupid, Stefan cleared his throat, and spoke loudly to the ghost-who-was-possibly-there-but-he-had-no-proof-of-it.
"Alaric, if you're there..."
Make yourself known. Yeah, right. He was definitely feeling like an idiot.
Sitting on the edge of Damon's bed, Ric arched an eyebrow, guessing from the silence what the vampire was thinking right now. If he had been in Stefan's shoes, though, he would surely have felt a bit silly too. Even considering he was a cursed man, who knew vampires, and had been one for a few hours, and had seen a fair amount of dead people come back from the dead, or at least manifest themselves.
It was the same thing as watching a supernatural film, preferably a B horror movie about vampires, when you knew, and had seen, the actual thing. Great, now he couldn't help but imagine Damon clothed as Dracula... worse, Nosferatu. Hilarious, truly. Dracula, at least, had some style, depending on the adaptation.
"Don't worry too much about Damon. If I have to, I'll lock him in the basement for a few days, away from any kind of drinks that are not blood or water. But anyway, we'll get that hunter, I promise. I won't let him touch anyone else in this town, and I'm sure once the idiot wakes up, he'll think the same."
After that, Stefan left, hoping he hadn't just made a fool of himself by speaking to a ghost who wasn't even there to begin with.
The ghost-that-was-possibly-not-there laughed a bit, and lied down next to Damon.
Alaric didn't close his eyes in all of the following hours, watching the vampire. He was dead, after all. He didn't need to sleep. In fact, he just couldn't sleep. Ric found himself to be a bit jealous of Damon, who was sleeping soundly. It wasn't so bad to be undead, after all. It was in fact way better than being dead, for those who ended up on the Other Side. At least, Damon could sleep to forget about his worries. Or drink. That, he did a lot. A lot more than needed, in fact. To be frank, the teacher would have liked it better if the vampire drank less, and slept more. If anything, when he was asleep, Damon was less likely to do something stupid.
Even if Alaric wouldn't put it past him, to manage to do something stupid while asleep. Nothing was to be overlooked, with Damon. Next thing they knew, he'd be sleep-walking.
Ric sighed.
Being dead, unable to interact with the world, and able to speak only with Jeremy, was difficult. Not only he was worrying over what happened to the living, but he also got bored pretty easily. He could pretend using objects, especially glasses of bourbon, by the way, but they were mere illusions he used to pass the time. And when he got bored, his brain had taken the habit to imagine strange things. Such as a damonish version of Nosferatu. Unless it was a nosferatish version of Damon?
He couldn't rely on Jeremy to entertain him. The teenager had other things to do. Though, now that he thought about it, maybe he should use this opportunity to help, or actually force, Jeremy to do his homework...
