Title: Wings of a Butterfly
Author: Traxits
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries (TV series).
Pairing: (eventual) Damon Salvatore/Jeremy Gilbert.
Chapter Rating: Teen.
Chapter Content Notes: Mild language and sexual tension.
Chapter Word Count: 2761 words.
[[ … Chapter Four: Landing … ]]
"Are you drawing again?"
At the sound of Damon's voice, Jeremy quickly flipped the page over. It wouldn't do for Damon to see just how many of the sketches were actually of him. He pasted the blandest smile that he could manage on his face, even as he stuffed the piece of charcoal back into the small tin case he'd found for it. He reached for the small cloth to wipe the dust from his hands before he looked up.
"Just a little. Stefan writes; I draw. Did you have something else planned for the day?" It wouldn't surprise Jeremy in the slightest. The past few days had been little more than a whirlwind of activity. They'd introduced Jeremy to just about everyone in town, Damon had insisted that he and Jeremy continue to practice shooting, and once Jeremy had recovered from their trip home, Damon had also begun to teach him to ride. At the thought, Jeremy winced. He would rather play football again than spend another day with the horses.
Damon arched an eyebrow. "Johnathan is back home." He leaned in the doorway, folding his arms over his chest.
Jeremy swallowed, careful to keep his face neutral. "Yeah?" He closed the small book he'd taken to sketching in. "When did he arrive?"
"Last night." Damon leaned his head against the frame of the door, and Jeremy licked his bottom lip slowly. There was a reaction that Damon was looking for from him, and Jeremy wasn't entirely certain what it was.
"Well. I should go see him then." He pushed himself up from the chair. He raised an eyebrow at Damon, well aware that he had been spending far too much time with him. Jeremy was beginning to copy his facial expressions. "Care to join me?"
"Oh, it was either that or spend another lovely morning with Father." Damon snorted and pushed off of the door frame. Jeremy forced his smile to stay in place; he was certain that Damon didn't want to hear his opinion on Mr. Salvatore. He was also pretty sure that everyone in the house pretended not to hear the fights between the eldest son and the father, or that everyone in the house pretended not to notice when Damon was sporting a particularly nasty bruise.
That morning, he had the faintest hint of one over his cheekbone. Jeremy was polite enough not to mention it, although he did let his gaze linger long enough to tell Damon that he had noticed it.
"Have you ever met him?"
Jeremy glanced over toward Damon, a slight frown on his face. "Uncle Johnathan?" When Damon nodded, Jeremy shook his head. "No. Never been up here before, you know? Uncle Johnathan doesn't— hasn't ever left Mystic Falls." He shrugged, but his breathing quickened at the almost-slip. He couldn't afford those. "What about you? You've met him."
"Of course. He and Father do some sort of business together." Damon grinned at him, shoving his hands into his pockets. He glanced back toward the road, toward the town rapidly filling their vision. "Mostly to do with his inventions. Johnathan spends a lot of time on that sort of thing."
Jeremy nodded slowly, and they fell quiet as they walked. It wasn't until they passed the apocethary that he suddenly stopped, feeling another shiver run down his spine. He looked back over his shoulder, and he felt everything in him go perfectly still as he met an all-too-familiar dark gaze.
Anna. Annabell. She had a small box on her hip, a bonnet on her head, and she smiled the most innocent smile that Jeremy had ever seen on her face. Like Damon, the tortured broody attitude wasn't there, not yet. She seemed so perfectly normal that it made Jeremy's heart skip a beat.
"What? Do you know her?" Damon stood beside him, looking at Anna curiously as she slipped back into the apothecary. Jeremy swallowed as he met Pearl's eyes, and he offered her a faint smile and bowed his head. Quickly, he turned on his heel and shook his head.
"No. I've never met her." A blush lit his face, and he started walking again, forgetting that Damon was supposed to be showing him the way. In fact, had Damon not caught his elbow, Jeremy might have hurried all the way back to the Gilbert house on complete auto-pilot. He hadn't been prepared to see her. He knew she would be there, had to know that. Pearl was going to be trapped in the round-up, and Anna would be torn apart by the grief and pain of losing her mother, only to come back and tear the town apart to get her mother back. He bit his bottom lip, reaching up to push his hand through his hair.
Damon was still staring at him, his eyes narrowed sharply, and Jeremy hesitated, realizing that he needed an explanation. And one that Damon could buy, something believable. He bit his lip a little harder, then said, "I... She looks like someone I know. From Shreveport."
Damon nodded slowly, but that gaze was still on him, still suspicious. "Yeah? A 'special' girl from Shreveport?"
"I thought so." Jeremy glanced back toward the apothecary. "But no, turns out she wasn't." He touched Damon's hand lightly, dislodging it from his wrist. "My apologies. I just... I wasn't prepared to see someone who looked so much like her." He laughed a little sheepishly and his blush darkened.
A smile crossed Damon's face, and then he tucked Jeremy under his shoulder and ruffled his hair. "Understandable, kid. You never forget that girl." He laughed, and Jeremy twisted away from him, a matching grin on his own face.
"I bet you don't," he said quietly, staring at the road under their feet. "Does it keep hurting even after you know better?"
"Oh, yes." Damon's smile faded just a little, and then he shook his head. "Come on. Gilbert house is just up here."
Soon as they stepped up to the door, Jeremy could feel his mouth drying out. It seemed that his nerves were perpetually on edge here, stuck in a constant state of terror. He supposed that was only natural, given that he was pretending to be someone else, and not succeeding could get him into a seriously bad situation— or dead.
Johnathan came to the door, blinking very slowly against the light as he opened it. "Damon. I wasn't expecting you. Does Giuseppe need anything?"
Damon shook his head, smiled, and stepped to one side. "No, Johnathan. It's not that. I have someone you might be interested in meeting." He glanced toward Jeremy, raising an eyebrow.
Jeremy could take a hint. He stepped forward, offering his hand. "Sir? My name is Jeremy Gilbert. I'm ah... Richard's youngest." He couldn't let himself breathe a sigh of relief, even when recognition dawned on Johnathan and he nodded.
"Right. Jeremy." Johnathan's brow furrowed, and then he smiled apologetically. "I thought your name was James... or John."
"Ah, no, sir." Jeremy blushed again, this time because he really was misleading Johnathan. Richard's youngest was named James, but Johnathan didn't have enough contact with the family to remember that. Jeremy was never more thankful that he'd read all of Johnathan's journals than in that moment, standing on the doorstep of the ancestor who couldn't have 'invented' a working clock with a diagram at his disposal.
"Jeremy..." Johnathan released his hand slowly, still staring at him. His eyes narrowed on Damon. "How did you come by my cousin?"
Damon held up a hand. "Completely innocent. He enlisted."
"You served?" Johnathan's eyes widened. "You're not eighteen."
Jeremy hesitated, well aware of Damon's gleeful smirk. He purposely ignored Damon. "Perhaps you've misremembered my birthday, Uncle Johnathan?" He arched an eyebrow, trying to convey his predicament without actually saying it. He couldn't bring himself to admit to that with Damon looming over his shoulder.
"Or perhaps you're a liar," Damon shot back. "He ended up on the battlefield with me. Got himself shot while pulling someone into the trench."
Jeremy fidgeted as Johnathan turned wide eyes to the bandage that he was just noticing on Jeremy's shoulder. "Really, it wasn't—"
"He had to come home for a rest. Isn't it lovely that you'll have him here for the holidays, Johnathan?"
Jeremy gave Damon his very best withering look, trying to get him to stop. It was like trying to stop a tidal wave by wading out into the surf and holding out his arms.
"And just think, Jeremy. You can help dear Uncle Johnathan with his inventions!" Damon looked back toward Johnathan. "You're always mentioning that it would be nice to have an apprentice. It could be the family business."
"I hate you," Jeremy muttered, and Johnathan started laughing. Jeremy was pretty sure that he'd never been as red as he was in that moment.
Damon's grin widened, completely unrepentant. "Oh, Jeremy... Is that any way to talk to someone who you're staying with?"
"Are you staying with the Salvatores? Damon, can he stay there a few more days? I have some things that I have to unpack—"
"Of course. We love having him."
It was the expression Damon gave him when he said it that sent the tremor down Jeremy's back. Something about it was particularly suggestive. Jeremy licked his bottom lip, narrowed his eyes, and smiled. He was all innocence. "And I am quite enjoying your hospitality, Mr. Salvatore," he replied. Damon's gaze sharpened, and Jeremy wondered for only a moment what exactly was happening between them.
"Good, good. Damon, tell your father that I have the things he asked for. I can bring them by in a few days." Without waiting for their answer, Johnathan disappeared into the house again, and Damon looked at Jeremy, something in the backs of his eyes.
"Are we heading back then?" Jeremy was very careful as he said it. For at least the moment, Damon looked as though he might actually tackle Jeremy right there in the street. For the moment, he looked like, well, Jeremy's Damon from his own time period. "To the house?"
"Is there anything else you wanted while we were here?" Damon guided him back toward the street, heading up to the Salvatore house. Jeremy shook his head, and as they walked back, a carriage passed them. Jeremy wouldn't have noticed it at all, except that there was a face in the window, glancing out over them.
Elena.
No, Katherine.
He swallowed. The moment of truth. She would have Emily, who could, with any luck, undo the spell that had him stuck here, and he could go back and Damon... Well, everything would be as it was supposed to be.
His eyes flicked over to the apothecary, where Pearl was putting out a sign in the window. He shook himself, focusing back on the road under his feet. He couldn't change anything. Wasn't supposed to. It was already bad enough that he'd given Damon a Vervain bracelet.
He instinctively reached into his pocket for the small piece of Vervain he'd tucked there as soon as he'd found a patch. It was harder than he would have liked, trying to remember what it looked like as a green plant, had taken him almost an hour. When he'd come back with a fistful of flowers and greenery, Damon had almost laughed him out of the room.
He had later sketched Damon with the bouquet. It was one of his favorites.
"What is it?"
"What?" Jeremy looked over at Damon's concerned expression, and he shook his head. "No, it's nothing. I'm just out of it today."
"Out of it?"
Jeremy smiled, shrugging. "Not all here? Kind of spacey?" He hesitated, and then he added, "My head is in the clouds."
Damon nodded. "Stefan does that," he finally said quietly. "Spends entire days not thinking about anything really. Or, thinking about everything at once. Worrying about what he can't do and struggling to do everything at once."
No matter how bitterly Damon said the words, he had one of the most indulgent smiles that Jeremy had ever seen. Damon loved his brother; Jeremy wouldn't ever doubt that again. He couldn't figure out what exactly had happened between them to cause the rift he knew about. Well, he couldn't believe that the rift had been caused purely by Katherine.
He supposed he was underestimating the power a woman had.
They reached the house shortly after the carriage had been pulled around to the back, and Jeremy blew out a soft breath. Katherine was laughing in the foyer with Stefan, Emily standing just behind her. Jeremy smiled, his hand brushing over the vervain in his pocket once more, reassuring himself that it was there.
Stefan gave them a warm grin, holding out a hand to Katherine. "Miss Pierce, meet my brother, Damon. Damon, this is Miss Katherine Pierce. She will be staying with us as well." He raised an eyebrow, and Jeremy was struck by how important it was to him that Damon approve of the arrangement. He glanced over at Damon and drew a sharp breath.
Damon was clearly smitten by her, taking her hand and kissing the back of it lightly, his eyes lingering over every inch of her face. She didn't have to compel him. Damon had always said it, but Jeremy had never really believed him. Perhaps because he couldn't see Katherine as anything more than a manipulative bitch.
She looked toward Jeremy expectantly, a smile on her face, and Jeremy bowed his head quickly, hands behind his back. "Miss Pierce," he said, as cordially as he could manage. "I'm Jeremy Gilbert."
"He served with me in the war," Damon supplied, lowering her hand slowly. The sound of Jeremy's voice seemed to have broken whatever spell had been placed on him, because the very faintest of blushes lit his face as he looked back toward Jeremy. "He's staying with us until his uncle in town can make room for him."
"How hospitable," Katherine said smoothly. Her smile was perfect; it was unnerving, to see her so at ease. He had only ever seen her impersonating her sister, and seeing her standing there, clearly her own woman... she was nothing like Elena except in their physical appearance. They stood differently, spoke differently, even walked differently.
"They are the epitome of Southern hospitality," he agreed.
"You don't look old enough to have served the Confederate States, Jeremy." Katherine had the same knowing smile on her face that Damon normally did. Oddly, Jeremy didn't find it as amusing.
"I look younger than I am, Miss Pierce."
"Oh, Jeremy, go get your charcoal. You have to show Miss Pierce your sketches." Damon turned toward him, and Jeremy hesitated. Damon looked absolutely enthusiastic, and while Jeremy wanted to indulge that, he didn't want to entertain or draw any more attention to himself than necessary.
He smiled faintly. "Why don't we allow Miss Pierce the day to recover from her travels? I am sure that if she is staying here, there must be some sort of reason." He tilted his head, and Katherine nodded slowly.
"Sadly," she said softly, and then she turned a little ways from them all. Jeremy frowned as both brothers stepped forward, exchanged looks, and then stepped back. Stefan was the one to lightly touch her arm, to comfort her, but Damon was hovering, almost right behind him. Within moments, they had whisked her away to the study, presumably so that she could tell them her sad orphan story.
Jeremy stayed in the foyer, and Emily hesitated before she bowed her head. As she walked by, Jeremy grabbed her elbow, and he murmured lowly, "I need to speak with you, Miss Bennett." He looked at her, raised an eyebrow, and when her eyes narrowed, he immediately shook his head. "Not for that. You're from Salem."
She froze under his touch, her eyes widening.
He let her go and held up his hands. "I'm not going to out you, I swear," he whispered quickly. "I just need to talk to you. It's about your daughter."
"No daughter," she said, just as quietly, and Jeremy nodded.
"Not yet."
There was another moment of silence between them, and she finally nodded. "Very well. Meet me outside tomorrow morning, before she wakes."
Jeremy smiled at her. "Thank you," he whispered, and he stepped away from her. He headed back to his room. After another minute, he pulled out the piece of charcoal and started sketching. He needed to think.