Chapter Four (Damon)

Damon watched the rise and fall of Summer's chest as she slept, curled up in a ball on her bed. Summer, he snorted to himself, what an appropriate name. Really, there was nothing about that girl that didn't remind him of summer; her light brown freckles that adorned her nose, that laugh of hers, those hazel eyes. Everything was just so fucking warm about her. He reached over and pushed her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears and he straightened up, glancing over his shoulder.

"Hello, Stefan."

"What are you doing?" his little brother asked, arms crossed over his chest and Damon rolled his eyes, turning to look at him with that sarcastic glare of his.

"Looking at my dinner," he said with a smirk and Stefan shook his head.

"Damon..."

"Relax, I was just making sure that she was o-..." he started, then he stopped, "that she was still here." What the hell? Stefan walked up to the bed and looked at her over Damon's shoulder, shrugging his own.

"Well, looks like she's perfectly fine so why don't you get some rest?"

"Stefan, I'm not gonna eat her."

"Get some rest, Damon."

The two brothers locked eyes and Stefan moved out of the way. Damon grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of the room, closing the door quietly behind them.

"Stef, interfere with my business one more time and I'll shove my hand down your throat and rip your heart out that way," he said, dangerously quiet, and he shoved Stefan against the wall before retreating back to his room, leaving a concerned and bewildered baby brother.


Summer walked down the stairs, looking all happy and refreshed and cozy in loose sweats and an oversized sweater and Damon looked up from the morning paper in the living room, raising an eyebrow.

"Morning, Sunshine," he said, and Summer patted him on the head before going to the kitchen. Damon made a face. "Don't... touch the hair," he mumbled and went back to the newspaper, then he paused. "Wait, you're kidding, right? There hasn't been any food in the kitchen since you've been here and it's been a week and a half. What makes you think that's changed?" he called after her and he stood up, following her, and he was surprised to see her actually... cooking.

"I did some grocery shopping," Summer said with a shrug as she heated up a pan on the stove and put a few slices of bacon on it. "I mean, I was getting so tired of eating out all the time -"

"Funny, that's something I never get tired -"

"...That's gross, Damon. Anyway, I just... wanted a home cooked meal, that's all," she said, smiling, and Damon guessed that he couldn't really argue with that. If food meant something to him, he'd probably appreciate home cooked meals more. Well, he liked the fresh blood straight out of the arteries for sure, way better than the packaged hospital stuff. He observed silently as she placed slices of bacon on the pan and used a different one to make pancakes, then, to his confusion, after she made a dozen pancakes, she made more batter and added blood and more flour.

"What're you doing?" he asked curiously, and Summer looked over her shoulder at him.

"Well, I don't wanna eat breakfast alone," she laughed, turning back to the stove and Damon couldn't help the small smile that tugged at his lips. God, she was cute and exactly how Damon had pictured her to be. Stefan came down the stairs next and he paused in the doorway of the kitchen. Damon turned around and looked at him, who was staring at Summer, all confused. Damon shrugged and Stefan shrugged and they just watched her cook, apparently all made-up from their encounter the previous night.

When she was all done, there were pancakes, blood pancakes, bacon, sausage, maple syrup and blood syrup.

"Have you catered to vampires before, or something?" Damon found himself asking and Summer laughed, shaking her head.

"No, but it's... not that difficult. Just add blood to everything and feed 'em lots of meat, right?" She smiled at the two brothers and the front door opened. "Oh, and Jeremy and Elena are joining us, if that's cool."

"Well, do we have a choice now?" Damon asked, rolling his eyes as the two visitors walked in through the door.

"Hey! Smells great," Elena said as she greeted Summer with a hug and Summer turned her attention to Jeremy, smiling up at him.

"Hi, I'm Summer," she said, reaching over to shake his hand and Jeremy took it, nodding his head and matching her smile.

"Jeremy. I've heard a lot about you," he said eagerly and Damon raised an eyebrow.

"Right, so, breakfast," he said, taking Summer by the shoulders and bringing her to the cabinets which he opened to find completely new plates. He opened the drawers to completely new cutlery. "Stef, I feel like she's trying to interfere with the way we live. New silverware and plates? Blood-food instead of actual blood?"

Stefan laughed and he went to work, setting up the table with Elena and Jeremy hung back to talk to Summer.

"I hear that you're a shape-shifter," he said, sliding up to her and Damon kept his ears trained on them as he walked out of the kitchen carrying the plates of pancakes, then he took a seat.

"You hear correctly," he heard Summer say with an amused laugh.

"I've been doing a lot of reading on shape-shifting and, uh, and your family, actually - my best friend. Tyler? He's a Lockwood. You met him your first night here. I heard there's a way to counteract against the blood feud, but it takes a lot of self-control in order to do it," Jeremy said, "and since you're older and more experienced than him, I... think it'll only work on your part until Tyler trains himself to do it. I mean, we can go talk over it at the Grill later tonight -" Damon stood up and went back to the kitchen, interrupting Jeremy.

"Hey, c'mon, everyone's hungry," he said, staring at Jeremy and the younger boy looked back at him. "Go on, little boy." He straightened up and walked by Damon but not before wiggling his ring finger in front of his face.

Dick.

Damon went to help Summer with the rest of the food and the drinks and returned to his seat, annoyed to find that instead of sitting beside Summer, he was sitting beside Jeremy.

"Punk. Move," he said, kicking at the chair and Jeremy stared up at him before rolling his eyes and shifting over.


Summer had asked Damon to pick her up from school at 3:00 and, Damon, clearly pussy whipped already, had agreed to, much to Stefan's amusement. Damon was there early to harass Alaric Saltzman, the school's full-time history teacher. He was also a full-time vampire hunter, but. One of the good ones that Damon happened to like.

"You have a spare?" he asked as he popped his head through Rick's doorway, and Alaric nodded his head, gesturing for him to come in.

"Close the door." Rick put all of the schoolwork he had to mark in his bag and closed it up before sitting on his desk. "What's up, Damon?"

"Have you done any research about this shape-shifter?" Damon asked as he slid up beside Rick, and the teacher shrugged his shoulders and scrunched up his nose.

"A little bit. She's about 19 in human years and going on 170 in ...regular human years. She's a cougar -" he chuckled a little, "and she was involved in raids from the years 1890 - 1920 all along the east coast."

"Raids?" Damon asked, raising an eyebrow and Alaric nodded his head, pulling a few articles from his desk that he had saved for him.

"Animal attacks in Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Connecticut, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Baltimore and in parts of Canada. They were vicious," he said, grimacing and Damon looked through them. Groups of vicious wild animals had ripped through cities and towns, leaving trails of dead. Bears, mountain lions, wildcats, birds of prey and wolves, all of them had been suspiciously organized.

"You said that Bonnie saw something that had scared her? A village?" Alaric asked and Damon nodded his head, reading through one of the articles. Rick nodded his head and tapped the bunch of paper that the vampire held. "I guarantee you it was one of these raids. D'you think she's a danger to the town?"

Damon scoffed and raised an eyebrow at Rick as he rolled up the paper and held it in a hand like a scroll. "You really think I'm the guy to ask that?" He shook his head, raising a finger and wagging it. "Nuh uh. Now, if you excuse me, I've got a cougar to hunt down," he said with a smirk and Rick opened his mouth to say something to that, but Damon was already gone.


Damon walked down the hallways, pushing past kids to get back to the parking lot when all of a sudden, two students crashed into him, forcing him against the lockers.

"What the -" And he almost lost it until he saw who was scuffling around. Tyler and Summer were duking it out, shoving, pushing, slapping and punching each other and everything and Stefan was on his way, Damon could see.

"Damon!" Stefan shouted, unable to get through the crowd and the older vampire grabbed Summer and forced her away from Tyler, then locked Tyler's arm behind his back effortlessly, shoving the two away from each other.

"Knock it off," he said, glaring at Tyler and the students that had formed a circle let out a collective 'ooh'. Tyler started to walk away, then Summer pushed Damon off of her and went at him again. Tyler growled and sent Summer flying into the lockers.

"Damon," Stefan called out, more of a warning this time as he could see Damon getting a little more than pissed off.

"I said," he began as he kept Summer down with a foot and he shoved Tyler away, "knock it off. Before I really fucking hurt you, Lockwood." Summer was squirming around on the floor, trying to get away from Damon and Damon just added more weight to keep her still. "So why don't you just go ahead and... find something to chew on?"

Tyler wiped the blood from his nose and he pointed at Damon, spitting at the floor. "I'm coming after you. I'm coming after the both of you and your kid brother too, and keep Caroline the fuck away from me," he warned before he ran off, pushing past the crowd. Damon finally let Summer go for a brief second, only to get her up to her feet and he held her arm in a vice grip as he dragged her out of the school.

"I didn't need your help," she retorted, finally wrenching her arm away from Damon and the vampire raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, good, then. Next time you and Dances With Wolves over there get into a fight, in broad daylight, in the middle of your school hallway, I'll just sit back, get some popcorn and enjoy the show. It'll be like a Gladiator moment," Damon said, putting up a thumb and then slowly turning it into a thumbs down. "Kill the wolf! Kill the cat! It's all fun and games for you, isn't it?" He yanked the car door open for Summer before moving to his side of the car, climbing in, visibly grumpy now.

"Sorry," Summer mumbled under her breath as she buckled up, crossing her arms over her shoulders, and Damon rolled his eyes.

"Sure," he said, stuffing the journal articles into the glove compartment of his camaro, and they drove off back to his house. Summer was quiet for the first few minutes of the drive until she turned her head to look at Damon.

"Hey, so... I heard about Rose," she said, and Damon's ice blue eyes flickered to her before turning them back to the road.

"Oh yeah? What about her?" he asked, and Summer sighed, making herself comfortable in the seat.

"Just... that you two were really close. And that she died of a werewolf bite, and that's why you've been so..." she paused, clearly trying to think of the right word. Damon snorted softly.

"Yeah, it's not really something I like to talk about too much," he said, bringing his gaze back to her, cocking an eyebrow. "I think I liked it better when you weren't talking, and -"

"I lost someone too, Damon, okay? Don't act like you're the only one in the world that matters -"

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong. I'm the only one that matters to me and so I have no interest in the lives of others. You happen to fall under the category of other in my life, so I don't wanna hear your sob story about your shape-shifting boyfriend that died a tragic death or whatever this story that relates to me is," Damon snapped and Summer fell silent.

"He wasn't my boyfriend," she said softly, tears threatening to spill out and Damon could hear her voice quivering. He loosened his grip on the steering wheel and he turned to look at Summer, immediately regretting being such a douchebag. "I, well. He was my best friend after I left Mystic Falls. He died almost fifty years ago, and you know what killed him?" she asked and, when Damon didn't warrant a response, she replied anyway. "A vampire killed him. So imagine my distress and my problems with living with you and your brother while your vampire girlfriend Katherine - who, by the way, killed my best friend Joshua those fifty years ago, funny how this all works out - is in this town, underground, locked away and suffering from thirst. I will get Bonnie to lift that spell and I will kill Katherine," Summer finished, making sure Damon was listening to her.

"You're not going to lay so much as a finger on her," the vampire replied and Summer waited for him to stop at a red light, putting a hand on top of his.

"Just watch me," she said with a regrettable smile, squeezing his hand and she climbed out of the car.

Damon could feel his skin tingling underneath her touch, hours after he got home.