A.N.: I was made redundant today, after being messed around with extended probation periods and no training to improve where they felt I was lacking. And I have a few sage words for you all, whether you're still at school or starting work after uni or even stuck in a job you don't like: speak up for yourselves, even if you're uncomfortable doing it. Don't let people bully you into not asking for help. Don't be afraid to go to your teacher/manager, or their manager, reporting bullying. Keep working, don't give up, and always try to leave on your terms, head held high, with dignity.
On the plus-side, more fanfiction for you all!
Dangerous Beauty
07
Chains
Things weren't the same, they could never be. The situation as different: Damon wasn't in town on one of his whirlwind stops, taking her out for an amazing weekend before disappearing again. Despite all he said, Damon was building a life in Mystic Falls – what had begun as a security-blanket, self-reservation, a means to taunt Stefan – it had come away from him, now its own monster. And Giulia was disillusioned. They could never go back to the way things were but having come through the other side of some truly awful shit, their bond was altered but becoming stronger for it. Discovering her father had died giving Caroline that fleeting chance helped. They were two enigmatic, hyper-articulate and incredibly well-educated individuals, so alike that if they hadn't had their own unique flaws, they might have absolutely loathed each other. But the opposite had happened.
And they closed ranks: their bond was a No Trespassing Zone and anyone who dared threaten it ran the risk of having their heart torn from their chests.
Giulia didn't move back into the Boarding House – the lines had been drawn, and the place was no longer home. Secretly she hated it, would have torn it down and put up affordable housing and a playground, but the Town Council had granted it status as a Historical Building and she wasn't allowed to. But she spent a little more time there, a phone-call from Jenna triggering the possessiveness in Damon that had been so latent recently in his distraction: once a week they were going to cook dinner, he would proofread her dissertations and she would trounce them in Scrabble – "them" being Damon and Stefan, who was behaving a little oddly: he was being nice to her. Like, wanting to spend time with her. At the public library; he even offered to take her to school; he had requested her as a friend on her online-Scrabble game – in general, he was driving her crazy, wanting to be besties. She supposed there were worse people to discuss Danté's Inferno with. But it wasn't natural – wasn't right – she and Damon had the close bond. Stefan ate her pets (he claimed to have been the one to feed Firenze while Giulia was in New York with Caroline). But he was trying, something he hadn't since returning to Mystic Falls – she was Damon's, and he'd always known it. But he was trying.
"Yeah, that might be my fault," Caroline said over the phone, as Giulia sipped a berry smoothie. She was luxuriating in the sunshine, sat at a small mosaic table outside an independent café, in a black sundress printed sporadically with white flowers, with tiny racer-back straps. The sun stung her skin deliciously, a gentle breeze rolling off the river, and she had sunglasses on to combat the glare off her textbook pages. "I kind of went off on one the other day about, you know, him…getting your dad killed, and spending all his time with Elena, not manning up and trying with you. And then Damon overheard and teased him about something like 'all talk no trousers'–"
"I'd really rather Stefan have trousers on if we're talking about him," Giulia grimaced.
"My point is, Damon told Stefan he's always saying he's the better person but so far when he should've been there for you, he's been sitting in Elena's lap."
"Again, urgh. I don't need to be friends with everyone, Caroline," Giulia said fairly. "We're family. That means we don't have to like each other."
"Oh, I know. What's that quote you used to have on your English binder?"
"'I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and l like less than half of you half as well as you deserve'. Words of wisdom from an eleventy-one-year-old Hobbit," Giulia grinned lazily. "But in future could you please lay off the guilt-trips, Stefan's starting to freak me out with all the wanting to hang out. Torturing him with The Beibs while he was rehabbing was one thing – he wants us to play board-games."
"He's not letting you play Cluedo is he?" Caroline asked anxiously. Giulia pursed her lips.
"Damon says we're not allowed if he's home," she said peevishly. "Apparently he's still scarred. We're supposed to have another games-night soon, d'you want to come?"
"I'll bring some board-games – yours are the worst! Wait, why is it 'games-night'?"
"'Family night' felt a bit like a slap in the face," Giulia said darkly.
"So, why're you having games-night?"
"Damon's feeling territorial after Jenna invited me over for family-night."
"That's a little awkward," Caroline said, and Giulia pulled a face her best-friend couldn't see. That had been her initial thought, but it had turned out to be a good night. She'd never had a mother, but Jenna had been supportive and tough and funny and sweet and she'd thought, Hey, this is must be what it feels like. It had made her stomach hurt for missing her dad. He'd have liked that Jenna asked a. if Giulia was eating vegetables at least twice a week, b. whether she was doing her homework and not staying up on her computer all night (guilty) and c. if she was using condoms.
"It's much more Modern Family – Elena wasn't there, but Ric was, we watched Labyrinth and tortured Jeremy about Ashlyn," Giulia said, smiling. Ric was quite good at card-games, they'd sat around the kitchen-table playing blackjack while Jenna drank a glass of wine and Jeremy sketched Giulia, who had been asking Mr Saltzman what his experience at Duke had been like as a student.
"Poor kid," Caroline chuckled.
"Jenna's relieved Ashlyn's four hours away – and alive – she thinks it's not good for him that Jeremy falls so fast and so hard. She thinks a little distance will help keep things at a regular, human pace. That, and she's cracking down."
"Really?" Caroline asked sceptically.
"Her nephew's a serial monogamist whose girlfriends are all dead and her niece is a. dating a vampire and b. an unnatural freak of nature with an ancient evil-twin who stabbed her uncle-father in the kitchen. Maybe I should design a Mystic Falls Cluedo!"
"Oh god."
"If you're coming to games-night bring some snacks; Damon keeps the Kool-Aid replenished."
"I know; I've been pilfering from his supply," Caroline admitted guiltily.
"At least you're not pilfering from his watch collection," Giulia said lightly, shrugging.
"You know, I asked him about his signed copy of Gone With the Wind and he said if I even looked at it he'd put my eyes out with his thumbs, he wouldn't even bother with the red-hot pokers," Caroline said."He's worse than you when I fold a paperback-book back on itself."
"That's just demented, it's one of the first signs of mental instability – sickening!"
"Oh, by the way, you can't have your games-night this week."
"Why's that?"
"I have set you up on a date every night this week. You probably are having phone-sex with some guy, I wouldn't put it past you, but I think you need someone around you can, you know, scratch and sniff."
"Wow – I – wow. I have to go now."
"I'm not joking. Five nights, five dates. I wanted to sign you up for speed-dating but you have to be eighteen."
"I really have to go and pretend you haven't just told me you've pimped me out!" Giulia said, holding the phone away from her head, calling to it, "Bye, now!"
"I'm sending you their details – wear something hot. And – oh, he's only fifteen but Callum is six-foot-seven and his back muscles, oh my – just be gentle."
"Oh – my – god!" She fought with her phone to end the call, glaring vengefully, and comically – and a little titillated at the same time (six-foot-seven?!) – at the device as she struggled to end the call with the stupid touch-screen and condensation from her sweating smoothie, startled as a shadow fell over her, the chair beside her moved, and someone in an immaculate suit sat down, a twinkle of amusement in his dark eyes. Giulia arched an eyebrow, glancing at her watch, saying, "Two years is no age-difference whatsoever."
She peered around, blinking, then asked, "Have you got springs? Where'd you pop up from?"
"Forgive my lateness, I would have joined you earlier but your conversation was far too amusing."
"See how amusing you'll find this; if I'm out every night, I'm not with you."
"No. But you'll be thinking of me while you're with other men; there is little better than that knowledge," Elijah smirked deliciously. Giulia raised an eyebrow, playing it cool.
"Don't flatter yourself," she scoffed in amusement, sipping her smoothie. She tilted her head and shot him a sly look. "How went the recruiting venture?"
"Profitably," Elijah said, sliding her a look. She knew she would get no more from him than that, and she shrugged as if she didn't care.
"You found what you needed?" she asked, sipping nonchalantly at her smoothie.
"The component parts required, yes," Elijah said, taking the smoothie from her gently, frowning as he eyed her straw, then took a sip. He licked his lips, and Giulia adored watching the exquisitely subtle reactions dance across his face like light shimmering off dewy spider-webs.
"But will they work seamlessly together?" Giulia asked. Whatever his plan – and Giulia had a pretty shrewd idea what Elijah was gearing up for – in her own mind there were too many variables that could lead to his failure. The greatest wasn't underestimating his foe; it was in overlooking human-nature. Whether a vampire or anything else, supernatural creatures had all at one point in their lives been born human; a vampire had heightened emotions but they were the purest thing a vampire retained from their human lives.
Besides, she knew he was fibbing: he didn't have all the component parts...
"I am an idiot!" she cried, smacking a palm to her forehead. Sprawled on the floor of Mayor Lockwood's study, a secret little cranny under the floorboard had been lifted, the concealed safe cracked with Giulia's deft fingers and Damon's supernatural hearing, and as she opened the engraved ivory box lined with velvet, she was thrown back to seventh-grade, when she and Tyler had discovered most of the hiding-places tucked into the old house. Tyler had scoffed at why his dad, who was unsentimental and a brute, had held onto a great hunk of milky white rock.
She'd known the whereabouts of the moonstone for years, and never realised it. She had never known the significance of that rock hidden beneath the Lockwood floorboards with other secrets.
"What?!" Damon frowned, glancing over his shoulder at her. He'd been knocking his clunky ring against the panelling throughout the entire house to check for anything that sounded like it had false-backs. She had turned over the house, unearthing the old hiding-spots where Giulia and Tyler had previously found bonds, Mason Lockwood's baby-teeth, an 1860s pistol, a very old bottle of absinthe and some pot.
"Nothing," Giulia sighed, shaking her head. Damon and the others knew nothing about the moonstone or any curse – either the fabled Curse of the Sun and the Moon or the other one, the real one, and she wasn't about to open Pandora's Box by spilling about the moonstone now missing from the velvet-lined ivory box. But she remembered the box, and the stone that resided in it; but it was gone, now, and she checked all Tyler's hiding-spots, frowning when she came up empty. Even his stash had been wiped out.
"Oh," she breathed, and Damon rolled his eyes again, sighing, as she lowered her arms, staring into the middle-distance.
"What?" he asked again, this time impatiently.
"She bartered it," she breathed. Of course. The moonstone. The fire. The lack of evidence of Lockwood journals – why would they want it all written down; the other Founders might have gotten their hands on the truth. 'The town archives don't breathe a hint of it but he was the most sadistic slave-owner for a hundred miles… I saw piles of them in pieces once', she remembered Damon telling her the other day. What she had read in Vera's diaries, remembering the white stone, she sighed and a tiny smile lingered on her lips. You sly bitch, she thought.
"What're you mumbling about?"
"You burned the Lockwood plantation to the ground – what about this house? George Lockwood wouldn't have had anything to do with it being built?"
"Actually, he commissioned it," Damon said, shrugging. "His parents still lived on the plantation, the family wanted to continue acquiring more and more land – which they did. Took all the land owned by the vampires."
"So, what kind of person was George? I mean," she added, when Damon frowned disconcertedly, "if you could get inside his mind, where would he hide things? Things he didn't want anyone else to see?"
"When we were kids, we used to climb trees in the woods," Damon said, his voice gentle and faraway. "George could climb higher than anyone, he used to love goading us from the topmost branches, convinced us there were secrets up there we'd never learn because we couldn't climb high enough." Giulia glanced up, seeing through the ceiling into the attic. She had never been up there, Carol, and not the Mayor, had never allowed it. She sighed heavily.
"I hope you hadn't planned out your evening," she said, replacing everything into the safe, narrowing her eyes at the books Damon had stacked haphazardly back on the bookshelves. "Put those back in alphabetical order, Carol will know someone's been in here."
"Alright, Schoolmarm," Damon rolled his eyes.
"Meet me up in the attic," she said, and spent the next hour scanning boxes, footlockers, coughing over the dusty remains of forgotten furniture. She doubted anyone had been into the attic in a generation: the farther back she went, the older everything was. Record-players gave way to chunky Victorian bassinets and wood-banded trunks she might've found in Hogwarts. Damon appeared, scaring the shit out of her in the dark and the stifling quiet. She whacked him in the chest, but he helped her source antique mid-Victorian furniture he remembered from the old plantation-house, specifically the hulking Chippendale desk that had been in George Lockwood's study.
"This was his," Damon said, clapping an inch of dust off his hands after running his fingertips along an edge of the closed cabinet-desk. It was perfect. The perfect place to hide something. All those cubby-drawers, and Damon's hearing helped them source out more hidden compartments, drawers and cupboards that made Giulia itch to take the entire thing home with her. The heavy Victorian design wouldn't suit her house but it was so full of potential secrets, the idea of it was delightful.
There was nothing in the Chippendale, to her disappointment: but after spending three hours rooting through old boxes and furniture, they stumbled across a metal footlocker – the US ARMY labelling was so faded and the paint so nicked and scratched it was barely visible: Giulia opened it, found a US flag folded into triangles, old photographs and a gun-box. And leather-bound diaries upon diaries. She glanced up at Damon, who was coughing over the plume of dust he had upset by pulling a dust-cloth off a wardrobe. She rolled her eyes, scanning the contents of the trunk. From the quality of the photographs and their content, she would hazard a guess this had been Tyler's grandfather's. He had been a soldier in 'Nam. She rooted through the diaries, finding some labelled 1965, 1968 and 1973, but older ones she had to carefully untie leather cords – the same bookbinder had supplied George Lockwood with his journals as well as Stefan – dated at the beginning of every entry in a clear, neat hand full of aggression, from 1861 to the last, incomplete diary dated 1864.
"Jackpot!" she called, and Damon clambered over an antique rocking-horse to her, squatting down beside the metal military trunk.
"You got something?"
"Diaries from the 1860s, and more from the Vietnam War era," Giulia said, gathering up armfuls of the diaries. There were nearly two-dozen of them, and Damon helped carry the others out. "Hang on," she said gently, as Damon headed for the stairs, but her eyes were on the door to the most luxurious of the guest-rooms. Dumping the diaries on the bed, she started opening drawers and closets; Damon went through the en-suite and checked under the bed.
"Whoa," she breathed, raising her eyebrows as she unzipped the huge sports duffel tucked inside the closet.
"What've you got?"
"Even for me…this is a little kinky," Giulia said, holding up a handful of chains and leather buckles. Damon stared.
"Nothing wrong with a little bondage," he shrugged, turning back to the armoire drawers.
"Have you found anything?" Giulia asked.
"Think so. Here, smell this," Damon said, handing her a t-shirt. She gave him a deadpan look. "Go on!" She inhaled, and glanced up at Damon. Rose perfume – rich, overpowering and decadent.
"Okay, so Katherine wears Serge Lutens, we know they're together, that's not news," Giulia said, shrugging, passing the t-shirt back.
"That just confirms it," Damon said, wrinkling his nose as he stuffed the t-shirt back in a drawer.
"Hang on – what's that?" Giulia asked, as Damon made to shove the drawer closed. A small plastic baggie poked its corner out between folds of clothing; Giulia plucked it out, and raised her eyebrows.
"Vervain?"
"That's not vervain. And it's not pot, either," Giulia said, before Damon could smirk. She carefully withdrew one of the dried blossoms from the bag. "I know what this is." Vera's diary had been very detailed about the appearance of aconite but the colours in her diary had faded over time. Still, this was "Wolfsbane."
"Wolfs – are you kidding me?!"
"Nope," Giulia said, eyeing the diaries on the bed. "This is aconitum vulparia. Wolfsbane. And if vervain is toxic to vampires, what is wolfsbane toxic to?"
"You're trying to tell me the Lockwoods are werewolves?" Damon smirked sceptically. "A., if George Lockwood had been a werewolf, I'd've known about it. 2. That's ridiculous. There's no such thing."
"Of course there is," Giulia said, frowning. "They're just nearing extinction and know how to cover their tracks – no pun intended."
"And how do you know that?"
"I have friends," Giulia said. "Friends who tell me things – like the fact werewolves are real, and an endangered species. Because vampires have hunted them for a thousand years. Because the bite of a werewolf can kill vampires." She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. "Might be worth asking your new bestie about it."
"Ric?" Damon frowned.
"Hey, get him on the horn," Giulia muttered, making a phone with her hand and shaking it while she reached with her other for one of the earliest diaries. Damon pulled out his phone, sighing, but dialled Ric's number and put the call on speaker so Giulia could listen in. She sank onto the ottoman at the foot of the bed, carefully opening the earliest of George Lockwood's diaries, ignoring the opening salutations of Damon and Ric's conversation.
"We were hoping you could shed some light on the Lockwood family," Damon said, and Giulia called, "Hi Ric!" toward the phone.
"Hey, Giulia. Now why would I know anything about the Lockwoods?" Ric asked.
"Well, you wouldn't – but your dead – not-dead – vampire wife might," Damon smirked.
"Hey, Ric, you told me all Isobel's old research is still in her office at Duke," Giulia said, glancing up from George's first diary-entry, a trickle of unease prompting her to sway the two from contemplating contacting Isobel in person. "That still true?"
"Yeah…I've been meaning to go down to Duke and clear it out," Ric sighed, and Giulia raised her eyebrows in surprise. For a man still so in love with his wife, still holding onto the hope he could find and/or save her…it sounded like he was giving up.
"You mentioned once she had spent years researching Mystic Falls – I've read all her published works," Giulia said.
"Most of Isobel's research focused on here, Mystic Falls, was rooted in folklore and legend," Ric sighed. "At the time I thought most of which was fiction."
"Like that amazing vampire story," Damon smirked.
"Do you remember reading anything about the lycanthrope?"
"Werewolves?" Ric said. "Actually, yes."
"No way. Impossible," Damon frowned. "Way too Lon Cheney."
"Damon's not a believer," Giulia said, and Ric chuckled at the end of the line.
"I've been on this earth a hundred and sixty-some odd years, never come across one," Damon said fairly. "If they exist, then where the hell are they?"
"Florida," Giulia said, glancing up with a deadpan expression, kicking the bag of chains so they rattled. "And the Mayor's house."
"Why do you suspect the Lockwoods?" Ric asked.
"Because vervain didn't affect the Mayor on Founders' Day but the Gilbert device did – and it affected his son Tyler," Damon said. "And, at the school carnival, his uncle Mason exhibited super-human behaviour when he fought one of the carnival workers, which would suggest some sort of supernatural entity."
"Plus, we found wolfsbane in Mason Lockwood's room and enough chains to keep Houdini happy," Giulia said drily, eyeing the closet and that duffel. She frowned. "Hm. Wonder if he'll be able to scent that we've been in here." She shrugged, glancing at Damon. "Guess the scent of dead-body will mask even my Georgio Armani perfume." Ric chuckled on the other end of the phone.
"Well, all of Isobel's stuff is still at Duke, all her old research is still there – she's technically still missing," he sighed.
"So, can we get access to it?" When Ric didn't respond immediately, Damon sighed, "Ric, we need to know what we're dealing with. If this wolf-man thing is true, I've seen enough movies to know it's not good. It means Mason Lockwood is a real-life Lon Cheney and that little Tyler punk may just be Lon Cheney Junior. Which means Bela Lugosi, meaning me, is totally screwed."
Giulia scoffed. "Tyler's not a werewolf."
"And how do you know that?"
"Because I've been with him on full-moons," she smirked, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "No fangs – no more fur than usual." Damon crinkled his nose, disgusted Giulia had ever had a sexual relationship with anyone, let alone the 'punk' Tyler Lockwood. Well, better Giulia made her mistakes while she was young, the repercussions could never be astronomical.
"Well, I need to go and clear out Isobel's things from Duke, I'm sure they'll be contacting me soon about needing the space," Ric sighed. "As it's spring break I'm free for a road-trip."
"Shotgun," Damon said, smiling.
"Oh, don't look at me – not that I wouldn't love to be a fly on the wall with the two of you, but I have dissertations due and Caroline has filled every day of spring break with tan-perfecting activities at the Lockwood swimming-hole," Giulia said, raising her hands.
"Looks like it's just you and me, Ric," Damon grinned easily. Giulia sighed, shaking her head. This is not going to end well.
Elena had crashed the road-trip, inflicting her pouting, flavourless presence on an otherwise budding bromance. Damon had texted Giulia all the back from Duke, and Giulia had immediately regretted not ditching Caroline's study-fest in favour of watching Elena getting shot at by a crossbow-wielding T.A. She had laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She'd texted, That's karma, bitch. Of course, then Damon had told her he'd taken the arrow for her right in the back.
And she'd manipulated information out of him about Katherine. Bitching and whining about being a good friend, something about friends not manipulating friends, a lot of drama about Jeremy and the ring that had saved his life...and he'd fallen for it – of course, he was pissed and hurt by her actions, her manipulation a little too close to Katherine for comfort. But venting to Giulia via hyper-articulate texts seemed to get a lot out of his system.
In Damon's words, he was "so over Kathlena manipulation".
And Giulia had spent the day pretending to be studying doing her college homework while she read through the Lockwood journals. Damon was right – George had been a real piece of work. Some of the things he'd written about, sketched, were so distasteful Giulia wouldn't sleep easily for days; both things he had written about his slaves and his wife, she wanted to go back in time to help Stefan tear him limb from limb.
But it answered a few questions she hadn't realised she'd had, confirmed what she had already guessed, and left her strangely disappointed that Katherine was so obvious. She had sighed and watched Caroline across the kitchen-table as she chattered on about planning the junior-prom and their routine for the Classic and how awkward things were with Matt since blowing him off the other night.
Mason (werewolf), Caroline (vampire), Elena (doppelganger). Katherine had it all figured out. Except she hadn't found the moonstone – Giulia felt that with a certainty deep in the pit of her stomach. Only she and Tyler knew about that particular hidden safe, and even if Carol Lockwood knew about the location of that stone, if it wasn't multifaceted Carol wouldn't care. With all the nooks and crannies in that house Giulia found it hard to believe Mason had had the time in the few days he'd been back in his old home to sneak around looking for it – unless he'd been brazen enough to ask. He was still a Lockwood, after all.
But then, Tyler was the kind of boy who'd always kept hold of something because he knew someone else wanted it, even if he hadn't wanted it himself.
And speaking of Tyler – "are you ready to go?" she called, tapping away a few texts. "Full moon waits for no man."
"Alright, jeez," Tyler sighed, strolling out of his bathroom in only a pair of swim shorts. Giulia glanced up but rolled her eyes at the sight. Far too much weight-lifting. Cultivated strength, not indication of a hard manual-labourer. She preferred stocky strength to chiselled skinny torsos.
"So how was the spa?" Giulia asked.
"You were right about those sunrise-warriors boot-camp classes," Tyler grinned. "They were amazing, me and Mason did two each morning, the trainers couldn't believe we could even stand afterward. And Mom really liked the food. And the wine." He pulled a face, shrugged slightly, but didn't say anything as he pulled on a t-shirt, kicking on a pair of sneakers.
"Did she get to relax, at least?" Giulia asked.
"Yeah. It's good we went. Nobody there we knew, Mom didn't have to be the First Lady all the time," Tyler said. "She just chilled most of the time, had a few massages and all that kinda stuff. Got her nails done, had a session with some guy who told her what colours she needs in her closet for her new mayoral wardrobe."
"Blacks, greys and blues," Giulia said.
"How'd you know?"
"Don't you remember Caroline running for Class President?" Giulia chuckled. "I had to talk her out of the Jackie O skirt-suit. She doesn't do things by half-measures." Tyler laughed.
"Yeah. Okay, c'mon," he said, indicating she follow him. "You're not wearing that to the swimming-hole, are you?"
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Tyler sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Nothin'." Giulia glanced down; dark slim-fit jeans, cute flats, a plain black baby-tee. "You've got this whole…Peyton Sawyer vibe going on recently, you know that?"
"Flatterer," Giulia grinned. Peyton spoke to her on an emotional level.
"I'm just sayin' – it's the summer. Lighten up," Tyler shrugged.
"You're just sayin' – put on that g-string bikini and low-rise jeans," Giulia said drily, and Tyler shrugged, grinning, leading her out to his sleek Mustang convertible. It wasn't exactly all-terrain and they had to walk through the woods to the swimming-hole; at least three dozen kids were already there, iceboxes filled with drinks and a grill near the old picnic bench was barbecuing burgers and ribs. The swimming-hole was a staple of any summer in Mystic Falls, for anyone who wanted to roll up – there had been unwritten rules about Vicki Donovan's crowd showing up, they tended to start fights and ruin everyone's good time becoming the obnoxious drunks/stoners. And Duke as a rule went to New Orleans for spring break so they didn't have to deal with him being an embarrassment.
Caroline greeted them with freshly-styled blonde curls, those highlights she'd gotten in Manhattan shining beautifully, a bright smile on her face as the tiny blue stud glinted subtly in her ear, handing Giulia a red plastic cup. She took a sip.
"What the – Kool Aid?!"
"Hey, my mom gave me shtick about being liable if anything happens here," Tyler shrugged. "Kinda don't want to upset her right now." Left a little stunned by that one tiny, but uncharacteristically considerate sentence, Giulia shook her head and shrugged, sipping the Kool-Aid lemonade Caroline had given her. Caroline glanced at her as Tyler left earshot-distance.
"You brought your hipflask, right?" Caroline asked, and Giulia chuckled darkly.
"Why, Miss Mystic Falls, you're not asking me to spike your Kool Aid, are you?" she teased.
"I'm just jittery, I don't feel right going to the Boarding House when Damon's not there to ask for blood, I haven't caught a single squirrel, and I'm a little jittery," Caroline said, and Giulia rolled her eyes, sighing.
"He's still trying to push the vegan diet?" she said, and Caroline wrinkled her nose. That's a yes. She scoffed. "He's a drug-addict trying to help someone else get sober."
A.N.: Please review!
