Chapter 6: Civil Disobedience
"Damon?" Hamilton was very confused, but stood still, quietly, listening to a new set of instructions that he was being given. By the time Damon was done, Hamilton had basically been compelled to do a significant amount of family research, as well as to avoid showing his face in any of Damon's favorite public hangout spots.
"Capisce?" Damon ended their brief 'chat'.
"Yeah, I'll stop by the boarding house after school and football practice tomorrow, but it will take me a long time to walk there alone," Hamilton responded, troubled by the orders that he somehow knew that he couldn't defy. He found himself rambling words that he had no control over blurting out, stating, "Plus, Jake will probably just follow me, too, especially if I look like I'm in 'zombie mode'. Also, tomorrow night is the first football game for the varsity team, and I'm expected to be there even though I'm only a backup freshman on the junior team and have no chance of playing this Friday, because the other school is smaller and isn't even bringing us a JV team to play first."
"Wait, hold up," Damon irritably realized that he was going to need to change things up a bit. Apparently, compelling a fifteen year old to come to the boarding house alone meant that the kid had to walk all the way at human speed… not that Damon cared, but if it took too long, people would likely be looking for him.
Damon altered the plan, "Go ahead and bring Jake too, so that you can get a ride... but just you and Jake. Not Elena's brother Jeremy, and don't tell Stefan or anyone else anything. Oh, and don't trust anything that Stefan tells you, and don't tell him that I'm compelling you. In fact, I'm compelling you now to tell me anything that Stefan attempts to compel you from here on out. Or anything that he tries to tell your friends. You get to be my spy, for now. Tomorrow, I don't want anyone following or tagging along with you except for Jake, so just say that that you have an appointment. Don't forget the address."
"I don't think that I can forget the address," Hamilton replied. He could tell that he was getting mind controlled, again, but he couldn't do anything about it this time, despite the fact that he'd previously had some ability to partially 'resist' Stefan's weaker and faulty compulsion from the time at school. He was fairly certain now that both of the Salvatore brothers were some sort of aliens or mutants with super powers, but was helpless to fight back against Damon's will. He wondered if maybe it was because perhaps Damon had somehow shifted into his own identical human shape, and had synced telepathically with Hamilton's brain in a way that Stefan couldn't manage.
After Damon had accosted them at Jeremy's house earlier, he'd been almost immediately compelled to 'relax, and act calm' about the entire situation, so he hadn't been able to voice any of his true opinions on the matter. He'd also found that he couldn't really even talk about it afterwards. It was as if the mind control was part literal but also part intent. Damon's ability seemed to be far more efficient than Stefan's, but he still remembered it happening, especially now that he was aware that the brothers were doing it to him.
He was pretty sure that Caroline was being mind controlled too, going by the oddities in her responses. Hamilton hated to think that Damon was mind controlling her to be with him, and was worried that Jeremy's sister Elena might end up in the same situation with Stefan. Unfortunately, he didn't think that he could even tell her or Jeremy about that. Hamilton was definitely frightened, but felt like he could only obey, regardless of wanting to fight back against it. He now wondered if he'd been cloned by aliens in the first place, and for what purpose? Or, maybe they were mutants? His youthful mind was filled with science fictional possibilities that all terrified him despite his silence. Were his parents even really his parents?
"Hey, Mini-Me, calm down," Damon patted the boy's cheek. The kid's heart was pounding like a heavy metal double bass drum beat. "Focus. Just go find out everything that you can about your family history. Especially anything local to Mystic Falls. We've got to have some kind of connection, and I want to know what it is before I decide exactly what to do about it."
Damon released Hamilton, and the boy immediately went to race into the house before stopping, but turned back around to face Damon, clenching his jaw. He didn't want to bring Jake to the Salvatore's house tomorrow. Not if it was dangerous, and he was inclined to believe that it was. Hamilton didn't want Damon to mess with Jake's mind in the same way that his own was already getting reprogrammed by whatever this was. He gulped, but narrowed his eyes back at his older mirror image. Damon looked at him funny, raising his eyebrows.
"Is there a problem?" Damon asked, perplexed. He'd never had anyone that he'd compelled turn back to attempt to question his instructions before, and least not in an intentionally defiant way. It usually made their minds a bit too mushy.
"What are you and Stefan? Why don't you just pick me up tomorrow and keep Jake out of this? I don't want Jake to come." Hamilton could tell right away that his look-a-like wasn't happy with his resistance, but he cared more about trying to protect Jake. His head pounded as he tried to fight his body's attempt to cooperate with absolute obedience. He felt like he needed to go inside and start the research that he'd been commanded to complete, but his fear for Jake's safety was creating enough adrenaline to question his orders.
"Are you fighting my compulsion? You look like you're about to have a brain aneurysm," Damon once again debated whether or not he should just snap the boy's neck and be done with this whole ordeal. These kids could easily become a problem, and he wasn't going to allow that. Their days were definitely numbered, but he didn't want to rush things and throw in a wrench that he couldn't take back out into his other plans.
At the same time, maybe figuring out how, or why Hamilton was his clone would also lead to answers about Katherine and Elena. He was pretty sure that he wanted those answers too, even before getting Katherine free. Otherwise, she'd almost certainly kill Elena. Which he shouldn't care about. At all. Again, he was becoming frustrated with the entire situation. He rolled his eyes and exhaled, trying not to let himself act out in rage over the day's events. Fuck it.
"I'm a vampire. You should not be able to resist my mind control. Stefan doesn't drink human blood, so his compulsion is weaker and broken, but mine should be completely full-proof. So, stop trying to fight it, you dumbass. You're only going to hurt yourself. I don't know why you look like me. It's not a science clone thing; it has to be some kind of magical side effect. I need to figure out why you exist; why Elena exists…" Damon growled and grabbed Hamilton's face, again compelling, "Tell no one about vampires. If you can't figure something out tonight, then keep digging until you do find something and call out sick from school tomorrow. Research your family back into the 1800's. That's when I was first turned from a human into a vampire. I can't remember knowing any Flemings back then, though. They weren't among the founders during my time… Don't tell Jake or anyone else about me, and I'll pick you up tomorrow. Give me your phone."
Damon released released his grip on Hamilton's face and held out his hand, expectantly.
Hamilton's eyes were wide, but he simply pulled his phone out and handed it over to Damon, who immediately called himself and saved the number, before handing the teenager's back.
"Call me when you've got something to tell me that could connect us by any possible familial relations. If this is a magical fluke, I have a hard time imagining there's no blood connection. Witch stuff always seems to have blood connections. If we are related, then maybe Elena is related to Katherine too, and maybe… nevermind. Again, don't tell any of this to Jake or Jeremy. Or Stefan. Especially not Stefan. Oh, and don't be an idiot. If you're going to be wearing my face, I don't want you to make me look stupid." Damon dismissed the human boy, scowling at how familiar he found the facial expressions that were reflected back at him.
Why the hell that he would care at all about Elena's fate was beyond him. This was all turning out to be a complicated clusterfuck that was pissing him off. Once more, he wondered why he'd just allowed Hamilton to escape into the safety of the residence that he hadn't even bothered to get an invite to before he'd the boy go. Oops. Damon was not at the top of his game right now, and he hated that. At some point over the last twenty four hours or so, his emotional switch had started getting all tripped up, and now he felt like he was losing control and had no idea what he was going to do next. He wanted to lash out and kill somebody.
Perhaps he just needed to go home and regroup his senses. Maybe focusing his efforts on tormenting Stefan would help a bit with his own mental breakdown. All he knew was that he couldn't screw everything up before retrieving the amulet or, even worse, ending up failing entirely at freeing Katherine. If that happened, then he might as well just stake himself. At least he wouldn't need to deal with Caroline tonight since he let her stay over at Elena's, because right now he didn't trust himself not to snap. Caroline was still his ticket into the founder's party events.
Still, he couldn't resist sending his crow up to indirectly scry on the girls before returning to the boarding house. The trio of high school besties were all sleeping over in Elena's room, despite it being a school night, and given her emotional state, Damon had no trouble getting into her head. He played a bit with her dreams, before sending some thoughts into Caroline's head as well. The blonde was even more vulnerable to his compulsion than Elena and the proximity of his crow was all he needed to mess with them both.
Try as he might, he found it impossible to infiltrate Bonnie's mind, even during her sleep. There was no longer any doubt that the girl was a Bennett witch, and he was glad to have discovered that sooner, rather than later. While she'd seemed wary of Stefan in particular during dinner, she hadn't behaved as if she was an experienced witch, and he wondered if she was even fully aware of her power. If she was, he found it odd that she'd been so seemingly clueless about himself being a vampire. They hadn't made any direct contact during dinner, but she'd been sitting awfully close to him at one point. Still, any descendant of Emily's certainly had the potential to complicate matters.
Hamilton slammed the door shut behind himself, breathing heavily with his jaw hanging open. Vampires were real? That still explained almost nothing, except for the mind control powers that Damon and Stefan both had.
"Cutting it close, tonight, Hamilton," Roger stood in front of him, with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, yeah, uh, I'm sorry. I just…" Hamilton stammered, no quite sure what to say.
"Relax," Roger clapped him on the shoulder. "You haven't given me any trouble at all, so I'm not mad about you being four minutes late, tonight. Just don't make it a habit, okay? We had pizza tonight and there's still some left if you want it."
"Pizza?" Hamilton's thoughts were completely all over the place right now. Pizza sounded good though. He hadn't gotten much to eat at Jeremy's house because of how weird everything had been. "Oh! Hey, Roger, do you know anything about our family history. Local, especially? Basically, all of my dad's ancestors that lived in this town or around here since the 1800's? I need to know before tomorrow."
Roger laughed, "This damned town and it's obsession with local heritage… they're probably expecting all the kids to already know this stuff, huh? You, know, I do have stuff packed away. Your dad lucked out when my uncle moved them up to Connecticut, going to school at Rawley, he never had to deal with the annoyance of us being just a few years shy of being a founding family."
Roger waved his hand and led them upstairs, before pulling down the attic steps. "Big brown chest at the top. It's already probably got all the stuff you'll need to survive school in Mystic Falls. Your dad's older cousins and I all had to put it together years ago."
Hamilton let out a sigh of relief, although he was a bit surprised. His dad had never really told him much about Mystic Falls, or how crazed the town seemed to be about local history. Maybe he'd be able to find something tonight that would get Damon to leave him alone. He really had no idea.
After about an hour of exploring the old box full of Fleming family trees and photos, which were mostly Roger's direct ancestors, he'd finally found something that he knew Damon would want to see. His own dad and Roger shared the same grandfather, and before that, nearly every Fleming ancestor was also named Hamilton, all the way back to the late nineteenth century. The very first Hamilton Fleming in Mystic Falls had married a local woman, but he couldn't find anywhere that mentioned her maiden name. She'd been an orphan apparently, but had been born in town before his original namesake had arrived.
If Damon was alive back then, maybe he'd know who she was. The very thought was mind blowing. Hamilton packed up everything useful he could fit into his backpack to bring with him to school tomorrow. He wished that he could talk it all through with Jake, but his fingers wouldn't allow him to even so much as make the call. He tried messing around with his Fender guitar, but couldn't focus, so he returned it to the stand right under the tattered old Third Eye Blind poster he had on his wall, which he'd had since he was a little kid. He wondered about his entire childhood now, and whether or not any of it meant anything. Being a magical clone of a vampire was… he didn't even know what it was, but kind of felt like maybe his life was never even his own from the start. The worst part was that he couldn't fully confide in Jake anymore. Damon had taken that from him too.
He was completely freaked out for the rest of the night, his thoughts and restless sleep filled with night terrors about murderous vampires, and by the time morning came, he felt like he hadn't slept at all. He barely spoke to Jake or Jeremy all day and struggled to stay awake during his classes. When it was time for football practice, he could barely stand, and every hit felt like he was getting plowed over by a bulldozer.
There was one oversized junior on the JV team in particular that seemed to have it out for him, partly because the guy was incredibly unskilled and slow, but seemed to think that he should have been varsity anyway. That older guy always took out his reject angst on any freshman that he could actually manage to catch, and today Hamilton was more sluggish than usual so he became the bully's prime target. He miss-stepped and fell quite badly at one point, and was pretty sure that he'd sprained his wrist during the brutal landing.
Luckily, practice was almost over by that point and the varsity team had a game to prepare for instead of practice, so it ended a few minutes short. Tanner let them all go, and Hamilton didn't have to lie when he told Jake that his head was pounding so he just wanted to go home for the day. His arm was already swollen and throbbed, and he barely managed to keep his hands both wrapped around Jake's slim waist, nearly falling off of the bike while going around most of the turns. He claimed that he could just get a ride from Roger to the big game that night, once he was feeling better. Jake seemed to be worried about him but didn't protest. It had been obvious that Hamilton hadn't been feeling like himself all day long. Jake knew that if there was anything more wrong than that, Hamilton would have confided.
Of course, the moment that Jake dropped Hamilton off and gave him a concerned hug, telling him to get some rest, Hamilton called Damon immediately as soon as Jake was out of sight. "I'm home from school and I have stuff to show you. I'm gonna walk down the street around the corner if you want to pick me up there."
"Don't you have a hat you can wear? Here, put these on," Damon shoved an extra pair of shades at Hamilton's face when the teen climbed into the Camaro, and grumbled, "Keep your head down, dammit! Didn't I compel you not to be an idiot?"
"I don't think that both of us wearing sunglasses is going to hide the fact that we both look identical," Hamilton shook his head after putting on the shades. He still hunkered down into the seat while cradling his aching left arm. Looking over at the vampire that shared his face, he quickly realized that pissing Damon off would probably be a bad idea. "So, aside from drinking blood and living a long time and mind control… well, do vampires have any other 'super powers'?"
Damon snorted, "Living a long time? We don't age at all once we turn, so basically we're immortal as long as our body doesn't get destroyed completely. There aren't many ways to kill us that we can't almost instantly heal from, and no, I'm not telling you my weaknesses."
"So that's why Stefan can jump right back up after taking some gnarly hits at football? He just heals, instantly?" Hamilton wished that were the case for himself, and he rubbed at his arm. It was definitely a bad sprain, at least.
"Stefan's weak, and a bad example of vampire anything. Compared to me, or any other normal vamp, his ability to heal or to control minds is all very limited. You don't want to mess with a vampire that actually drinks human blood. We hear, smell, and see much better than you, and we are a thousand times faster and smarter because our brains perceive everything like that," Damon snapped his fingers. "Even while he's inferior and on animal blood, though, no human can compare to Stefan, either. We're just exponentially superior at everything. Humans are nothing to us."
"How many vampires are there? How have they not completely enslaved humanity? How did you get turned into one?" Hamilton had so many questions, and if he was probably going to die anyway, he figured that he might as well ask.
Damon glared over in irritation at the boy, frowning. How could someone that looked so much like him be so… no, stupid wasn't really the right word. He'd been a lot older when he'd met Katherine, and under her influence, his experience had been very different than Hamilton's introduction to vampires. Still, even after being compelled, Hamilton wasn't reacting quite how he'd have expected him to, at least not outwardly.
"Vampire's are more solitary and predatory, rather than social. I have no idea how many of us there are. We don't all hang out together at a vamp 'bar and grill'. We're territorial and tend to isolate ourselves away from humanity. It's easier to hunt people when you think of them as food instead of friends. That's another thing that makes Stefan 'different'. He wants to be a real boy again," Damon snorted, shaking his head in disgust.
"Then why have you been integrating yourself into everyone's lives here, too? You could have stayed hidden and killed me before anyone knew that we looked the same, but instead we're going to your house to talk about my family history, and yesterday we were playing Jenga at Jeremy's house? I don't understand any of this," Hamilton exhaled, still frightened but also very tired and frustrated.
Damon clenched his jaw as he drove, replying, "You don't need to understand anything. You just need to do whatever I tell you to do, and keep your thoughts to yourself. I'm not answering any more questions about this. You're going to spy for me, not on me, and you're right, I could kill you at any second and maybe I still will. Unlike Stefan, I have no problem with killing anyone that I want to."
"So, Stefan won't kill me, or anyone else?" Hamilton was trying to figure out if maybe some vampires were good and some were just bad. Unfortunately, it was starting to look like his mirror image was definitely in the 'bad' category.
"Stefan doesn't want to be a killer, but don't be fooled," Damon gritted his teeth, "He's just as capable to ruin everything and slaughter the entire town as I am. All it would take is a little nudge and he'd be a whole different vampire."
That gave Hamilton the shivers, because he was certain that Damon wasn't lying about it. It almost sounded as if Stefan might actually be a ticking time bomb, and maybe even potentially more dangerous than Damon. "So, what exactly do you want me to spy on? In order for me to not die, and to keep Jake out of all of this, I mean?"
Damon took a moment to respond, as he pulled up to the Salvatore estate, before saying, "When I want you to know, I'll tell you. Until then, I just want you to let me know if any of Stefan's little friends start mentioning anything about me or about vampires. I want to know exactly what they know, before they know that I know it. I've already got Caroline on that, but it won't hurt to have you doing it, too. So if you hear anything, you'll tell me, discreetly, when nobody else is around to see or hear us. Mostly though, I want to know what you've been up to so far since you've come to town. Where all have you gone, and where do you spend most of your time? We need to minimize all that strategically, going forward. I can't have people staring at me because they just saw you walk by right before I got there. That won't work, at all. So, talk."
As they entered the boarding house, Hamilton gave Damon the full run down of everything he'd done and everywhere he'd ever gone since arriving in Mystic Falls. Damon was pleased to hear that aside from school and football, Hamilton's social group existed mostly of only Jake and Jeremy. Other than dining at the grill, they'd spent the majority of their time on the school roof or out in the woods, mostly out in the quarry on the row boat. It wasn't nearly as big of a problem as it could have been.
If Damon decided that he needed to kill off Hamilton, there really wouldn't need to be as much collateral damage as Stefan had tried to infer. Regardless, Damon didn't like leaving any loose ends. He led the human teenager up to the library, and demanded that Hamilton share everything that he'd discovered about his family history. Hamilton was in no rush to be disposable and took his time, starting with how his dad and Roger were cousins that shared the same grandfather, who had been his own great-grandfather Hamilton.
Much to Damon's annoyance, Zach showed up uninvited and intruded on their meeting, and he was beyond shocked at seeing Hamilton for the first time.
"Uncle Damon, how is this possible? Why… How did you make him?" Zach babbled.
Damon rolled his eyes, before zooming over to Zach, grabbing him by the throat, causing Hamilton to drop his backpack in surprise.
"You don't get to ask me these questions, Zach. You need to keep out of my way, and keep your mouth shut," Damon ordered, releasing the man, before saying, "Besides, I didn't make him. We're still trying to figure out the 'how' and the 'why' of this whole freakyness. Somehow, he was just born, and grew up like any other human, except for some reason he looks exactly like me. I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly inconvenient that is. Never, in this world or any other, would I have chosen to make an exact replica of myself, Zach. Unfortunately, I now need to know why, how, and if it's possible that there could be more like him out there. What if I got rid of this one, only to have another one pop up when and where I least expect?"
"Wait, so, you just found him like this?" Zach's self-preservation skills were most definitely lacking. Damon narrowed his eyes and was contemplating snapping the insufferable man's neck, just to make a point to Hamilton, when Stefan suddenly arrived. Stefan had heard the argumentative noises when he'd stopped by to grab a few things from his room before heading back out to prepare for the night's big game.
"Damon. What's going on?" Stefan glared at his brother, walking over to stand between him and Zach, glancing over at a wide-eyed Hamilton a bit confused, and very worried. Once again, the pounding of Hamilton's heartbeat was drowning out both vampire's enhanced hearing. For some reason, Zach's wasn't nearly as fast, probably because he'd become more accustomed to existing amongst the vampires that were his only remaining family.
Hamilton was terrified, but in a desperate attempt to diffuse the situation, he unzipped his backpack and started to pull papers out of it, interrupting the vampire stare down, and forced himself to speak. "So, uh, Damon... I was asking my older cousin, Roger, about our local family history, and he dug some really old stuff up from the attic."
Hamilton's hand shook as he held out an old black and white family photo, before continuing to speak, "This was the first known Hamilton Fleming, who apparently moved to Mystic Falls shortly after the Civil War, back in 1872. That's his wife with him back in the 1880's, the mother of the second generation of Mystic Falls Flemings, who was apparently a few years younger than him. She was an orphaned local that he met in town. The stuff that I found just gives her married name as Lucia Fleming, after she married that old Hamilton, but she looks like kind of a mix of... Salvatores?" Hamilton pointed between Damon and Zach, because the mystery woman looked a bit more like Zach or him, but nothing much like Stefan. "So, maybe…"
"Give me that," Damon grabbed the picture from the teen, before tilting his head as he looked at the mystery woman in the old photograph. "Huh, yeah, remind you of anyone, Stefan?"
Stefan hesitantly reached for the photograph, before holding it out near Zach's face, and his eyes narrowed as he replied, "Well, she definitely resembles Father, and our younger half-brother who Zach descended from, enough that they could have been fraternal twins or at least full siblings. Do you think...?"
Damon interrupted, impatiently, "Papa Salvatore had more than one bastard? Yup, I'd say so. Looks like we probably had a baby half-sister that we never knew about, too. So, that means that this new, young Hamilton is probably about as distantly, barely still related to us as Zach... but somehow looks exactly like me. There's no way that this is just a genetics thing. That's like one in a trillion odds or something. Look at Elena and Katherine. Our vampire sire has an exact clone too, so this has to be some kind of magical consequence of vampirism. Or something magical connected to familial bloodlines."
Zach just stood there staring between Stefan, Hamilton, and Damon in shock, as Damon tensely paced the library with an unsettling dark look on his face as he spoke aloud. Zach was just glad that Damon remained clueless about his supply of vervain. Zach knew far too much, because he'd allowed Damon to believe that he was always compellable. He'd always hoped that the hostile vampire wouldn't simply murder him, but after the earlier confrontation he strongly felt that his days were numbered. He knew without any doubt that the boy with Damon's face was definitely a dead man walking, and it was obvious from Damon's statement that their status as 'family' was an illusion that wouldn't protect them from Damon's wrath. Zach decided that once he was sure that Damon wasn't around, he would push hard to convince Stefan to find a way to get rid of Damon, once and for all. Only after Damon was gone would it be safe to also get rid of Stefan, and finally free himself of vampires for good.
"So, what can we do that doesn't involve you killing me off?" Hamilton was becoming uncomfortable with everyone staring at him, and Damon's pacing was only increasing in fervor, so he tried to speak up again, hoping to find a way to compromise with the vampire. He quickly added, "I'm stuck in this town for a while still, and hundreds of people have seen me around anyway. Probably a lot more than have seen you, so far."
A dangerous, bemused look on Damon's face morphed into an unpredictable mix of mirth and deadly intent, before he uncharacteristically announced, "Well, since it's your head on the chopping block, that's going to be more up to you. You obviously need to stay out of town as much as possible and avoid showing your face anywhere at the same time as me. Stay out of the Mystic Grill from now on, and other places that I decide that I need to frequent."
Stefan's jaw hung open slightly, amusing Damon. His little brother had clearly not expected him to appear so reasonable. He smirked, continuing to pretend that he wasn't planning on killing Hamilton, after all. He decided to further confound Stefan, declaring, "Keep going to school as usual and stay out of any trouble that gets you noticed, but avoid the public functions because I might decide to go to them. It's one thing if some of the kids in town think 'Hey, that guy looks like Hamilton,' but another entirely if their parents notice it while we happened to be at the same place at the same time. That won't work at all, and I need to be able to stay here for at least another month, possibly longer. Not sure yet."
Damon glanced over at the frowns on Zach's and Stefan's faces. They were in for a huge surprise once Katherine, and possibly the others, were finally freed from the tomb. He certainly didn't plan on actually waiting another month before that occurred, but the entire point of this conversation was to throw Stefan off. He kept going, "Also, don't end up in any randomly photographed or filmed images, at all. The last thing I need is having your face, our face, posted anywhere that people can take a double look at."
Stefan finally managed to blurt out, "You can't kill him, Damon. His face would be all over the news, whether or not his body was ever found. Everyone would be looking for a missing fifteen year old for months. They'd see your face everywhere in town."
"Well, obviously, Stefan. Isn't that what I just said, and not for the first time?" Damon mocked, reaching out to place his hand firmly on Hamilton's shoulder. It would have made quite a picture, with the older vampire standing next to the younger mirror image, almost as if he were claiming the human as his ward.
Hamilton didn't dare pull away, but he still managed to speak, asking, "So, that's the only reason that I'm still alive right now?"
Damon snorted, removing his hand and smirking at Stefan while replying to Hamilton, "No. The reason you're still alive right now is that I don't dislike you. Yet. Keep it that way. Just stick with your usual habits for now. School; football while wearing your helmet as much as possible, just in case the adults are watching; row-boating in the quarry out of view of the locals… Be as invisible and extraneous as Elena's equally irrelevant brother Jeremy, and you have a chance. What you're not gonna do is become someone who matters in this town. Don't join in on any important social clubs."
Stefan wished that he could believe that Damon was being genuine, but the last time that he'd let his guard down back in 1994... well, there was a reason that Zach was the last Salvatore. He couldn't help arguing, "Wouldn't it just be easier for you to leave town for now, Damon? Come back in five years instead, and Hamilton can leave after he's out of school?"
That was the wrong thing to say to Damon. "Oh, you'd love that wouldn't you, Stef? Having Elena all to yourself? I'm not gonna make it that easy for you. My plans are time sensitive, and surprisingly had nothing to do with Elena Gilbert. She's as much of a bizarre coincidence as young Hamilton, over there."
Stefan's hackles rose, as he picked up on an alarming bit of information that he knew Damon hadn't meant to give up. He knew that he was risking setting Damon off, but he just couldn't stop himself, replying, "'Had' nothing to do with Elena. Don't you mean 'has' nothing to do with her? History will not be repeating itself, Damon."
Zach gulped as he watched Damon seethe, and he wished that he wasn't still in the room. He suddenly felt as if he were the most likely target if Damon suddenly decided to lash out. Instead, Damon regained control and grinned widely at Stefan.
Hamilton rubbed at his sore arm, uncomfortably, asking, "So, can I go, then, and you won't kill me or my friends?"
Damon continued to stare directly at Stefan, but answered Hamilton, "Completely forgot you were even here. Scram."
Zach decided that the offer to leave also applied to him, and immediately left the library. Perhaps he had some sense of self preservation after all.
Hamilton had only just managed to zip his backpack up and was preparing himself for an exhausting walk home when Stefan decided to approach his brother, effectively cutting off Hamilton's own retreat, as the weaker vampire blurted out, "What the hell are you up to Damon?"
"Right now?" Damon rolled his eyes, pointing at a glass he'd poured on the way in and glanced at a book sitting on a table nearby, which also caught Hamilton's attention, "I was going to drink this bourbon and read, because I'm diabolical like that, Stefan."
Stefan glared at him for a few more seconds, before finally turning to move out of Hamilton's way and stomping out of the library. He decided to go get what he came for and return to the school. He needed to get ready for his football game. Stefan hoped that maybe Damon would just stay home now, knowing that Hamilton would need to be out in public at the game. He didn't trust his brother at all, but doubted that the younger teen was currently in any more imminent danger.
Instead of following Stefan, Hamilton's eyes had caught onto the book that was next to Damon's bourbon. Hoping that this didn't classify him as an idiot, he decided to take a chance, stating, "Walden; Life In the Woods, Henry David Thoreau, I know this one. Wow, this looks old!"
Damon pursed his lips, mumbling, "Mmhmm, first edition…"
Taking a breath, Hamilton tried to steady his heartbeat and cautiously began to recite, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Damon tilted his head, curiously, looking at the boy, trying to figure out what he was up to. Hamilton returned a steady gaze, without any deception leaking though. Finally, Damon stated without question, "So you've read it, I take it."
Hamilton shook his head, replying honestly, "No, just learned that main part. We read 'Civil Disobedience' instead. I wanted to read this one, though."
Hamilton watched as Damon finally lowered his guard and the corner of his mouth quirked slightly as he said, "Pre-Civil War transcendentalism at its finest. You know what, 'Mini-Me', go ahead and read that copy, but I want it back. It has my old notes in it."
Hamilton grinned, snagging the book with his good arm, starting to head towards the door while waving the book, "Really? Thanks!"
Immediately, Damon had second thoughts and returned to his feet, calling out, "Hey! Don't get water on it. I've had that book since I was your age."
Hamilton paused, trying to shift the weight of his backpack without giving away the pain of his bad arm. He looked back up at Damon, saying, "Whoa, so… it really is from before the Civil War?"
Damon looked like he wanted to take it back. Instead he claimed, "Yup. In fact, I had to hide that one. Papa Salvatore wasn't a fan. Got it from a peddler before the war started. Thoreau was definitely on the other side."
Hamilton's eyes widened, "You were in the confederacy?"
Damon frowned, looking down at his bourbon before drinking it, pointing out, "Mystic Falls is in Virginia. Do you need a history lesson, or just geography?"
Hamilton was used to living in Connecticut, so that detail had slipped his mind, "I just... I didn't think…"
Damon sighed, "Relax. Wasn't really my favorite past time. Especially after my rebellious youth of disappointing my father and reading things like 'Civil Disobedience', written rather ironically by a man who was, to the south, an abolitionist, and other things that would have gotten my ass kicked at the time."
"Holy shit," Hamilton's eyebrows raised.
"Loooong time ago," Damon replied, completely forgetting to keep his mask up at this point. His eyes stared out into the distance, and Hamilton could tell that he was thinking of a time long gone.
"Yeah, no kidding," Hamilton agreed, because to him, a month was a long time. "This is all still so hard to believe. Hey, um, does it matter who I call to come here to pick me up? I live on the other side of town…"
Damon snapped out of his reverie, and quickly decided that he didn't want any more people deciding to get comfortable with driving up to his domain. He rolled his eyes in annoyance. Bringing Hamilton all the way over in the first place had actually been rather unnecessary. He sighed, grumbling, "Let's go."
"Oh. Sure. Thanks, Damon," Hamilton wondered if he should throw an 'uncle' in there the way that Zach did, but decided against it and followed the vampire back out to the Camaro. When he went to swing his backpack off, he accidentally dropped it as the sharp pain in his wrist sent a lightning bolt through his nerves, and his entire arm throbbed. "Ow, shit!"
"How are you supposed to play football if you can't even carry a bag?" Damon snorted, finally noticing Hamilton wincing as he could no longer hold off from grabbing his bad arm.
"I guess I just sprained it earlier, at practice. I was tired, and fell on it wrong," Hamilton admitted, getting into the car. "Too bad I can't insta-heal, like Stefan," he half-joked. He didn't actually want to become a fifteen year old vampire but the powers would be nice.
Damon shook his head, not even believing what he was contemplating. Then again, it might make his new spy more complacent, and possibly piss off Stefan, so why not? Damon bit into his wrist, shoving his arm up to Hamilton's face. "Drink a few drops, and your arm will be good as new. Otherwise, that looks to me like it's probably more of a fracture, so your football season will definitely be over. You wanted to know what super powers a vampire has? Well, our blood can also insta-heal human injuries, too."
Hamilton had pulled back momentarily in shock, but then he realized what Damon was admitting to him, and the fact that he was actually offering to heal him? He hesitated a moment longer, but before Damon retracted his arm back away along with the offer, Hamilton grabbed on with his good hand, stammering, "Oh, uh, o-okay."
Immediately after swallowing the small gulp of blood he got before the vampire snatched his arm back away, the teenager felt his injured wrist bone repair itself, before suddenly the pain was gone altogether. "Woah! That just happened. That's amazing! Now I feel like I just had a full night's sleep, too. Seriously, how do vampires keep this a secret from all of human society?"
Damon shook his head, somewhat displeased with himself for his impulsive action, "Well, you've been compelled not to tell anyone about vampires. So, yeah, you can't tell anyone about it. That's how. Oh, and you should avoid having any sort of… accidents. Now that you have vampire blood in your system, if you die, you'll wake back up in transition. If that happens, come find me, and I'll… deal with it."
"That's how you turn a human into a vampire?" Hamilton couldn't believe what he'd just learned.
"That's half of how. The rest shall remain 'need to know', and I don't plan on turning you, so don't get yourself killed tonight. Ugh, what the hell was I thinking? Why am I even still talking to you? You need to go home. Just shut up, and sit there," Damon couldn't believe how much he'd already allowed this kid to weasel his way past all of his defenses. How had that even happened? He felt like the idiot, now. It was almost like Hamilton somehow just 'knew' him. He refused to believe that he possibly shared any similarities with this stupid human child aside from the obvious physical features.
"Hey, do you mind dropping me off near the quarry instead?" Hamilton looked up from texting on his phone. "Jeremy said the school was too noisy with all the game prep, so Jake went out to the quarry, but now I can't get any response from Jake. It's kinda weird, Jake would never let the battery die."
"I'm sure it's nothing. I'm the only big, bad vampire around, remember?" Damon turned the car to head towards the road nearest the quarry anyway, because it was a shorter drive than Hamilton's house and they weren't far. It would be quicker to dump Hamilton off there.
Except, when they pulled up to a crashed motorcycle off to the side of the road, Hamilton leaped out of the car and sprinted towards the skinny body laying prone, up ahead.
"Jake!"
It looked like Jake had lost control after trying to dodge a branch in the road, and had ended up flying over the bars and landing in front of the bike.
End Note Disclaimer: Quote used from the book 'Walden; Life In the Woods' was written by Henry David Thoreau