Disclaimer: I don't own James Cameron's Titanic or the Vampire Diaries. Although, I'm really glad I'm not J. Bruce Ismay (who [partially] owned the RMS Titanic).
Damon sat in his first class room. Alaric was just next door. It would be so easy to sneak downstairs to the steerage. Their company was always much more interesting than that of the first class passengers. Sighing, he sat up and pulled his hat on his head again. He walked down to the third-class.
Total confusion was the theme of the hallway in the steerage. People were loudly arguing over luggage in many languages, only a few Damon could even understand. Emigrants studied signs over doors armed with phrase books to learn new words.
In a blatant contrast to the steerage that Damon was walking the halls of, Elena was standing in the "Millionaire Suite". Klaus had one of the two bedrooms of the suite and she had the other. Her mother had a separate room.
A room service waiter poured champagne in a tulip glass of orange juice, handing it to Elena who took a sip and glanced through her paintings. The paintings were unknown, lost works by well known artists. There were Monets, Degas, Van Goghs and so on. Thieves, artists, and art enthusiasts alike would have looked as if they found gold from the sight.
Klaus stepped inside from the covered deck, which was complete with potted trees and vines on trellises.
"Well those were such a waste of money. Mark my works, none of them will amount to anything. At least they were cheap."
"Klaus has no taste in art," Elena whispered conspiratorially to one of the waiters who offered her a small smile and walked out. A porter wheeled Klaus' private safe into the room on a hand truck, walking it into the wardrobe, as had been Klaus and Elijah's previous instructions. Sighing, Elena walked into the bedroom, carrying up A Starry Night Over the Rhone. She set it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Bonnie was hanging up clothes.
"It smells so new," Elena said, sitting down of the corner of the bed, "It's like it was built just for us and when I crawl in between the sheets tonight to sleep, I'll be the first."
"And when I crawl between the sheets," Klaus said from the doorway, "I'll also be the first."
Bonnie blushed at the innuendo, edging her way away from the bed. "Excuse me, Miss," she said, before she made her exit.
Klaus stepped behind Elena, laying his hands possessively on her hips. "I'll be the first and only, forever."
In that moment, Elena never felt more like an object to be bought or sold or traded.
Like one of Elena's paintings in her room, the Titanic stood out from the purple post-sunset sky, looking more like a palace in the middle of the water than a ship. By the next afternoon, the final stop had been made and they were now steaming west from Ireland, with nothing but miles of Ocean ahead.
It was late afternoon when Alaric finally found again Damon, sketchbook in hand, hat tossed casually to the side, drawing the lovely Andie glancing off the side of the railing. Andie was a beautiful, young, thin middle class woman who had been disowned by her mother and father.
It wasn't well known to the world, but Damon was an artist. Alaric had joked that if Damon hadn't been a Count, he could have been the next Da Vinci.
It was growing dark when Damon stood, stepping onto the bow's railing. Alaric glanced forward across the Atlantic.
"I can see the Statue of Liberty," Damon told his friend, grinning, "Very, very small, of course, but I see it."
At this, Alaric chuckled. Damon lifted his arms up and out, balancing on the railing. "I'm the king of the world."
Of course, it felt that way. Why wouldn't it? He avoided the first class, sneaking in and out his suite and coming down to the life of the party- the steerage. They knew how to let loose, to have fun.
"She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history..." J. Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line, told the table from its head about the ship's crowning glory, "...and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up."
To his right, Thomas Andrews sat at the table. Surrounding the table besides Bruce and Thomas was Klaus, Elena, Isobel, and Ms. Margaret Brown. It was Friday in the first class' Palm Court during lunch. The sun was high in the sky, shinning threw high arched windows onto the group. Thomas shifted uncomfortable.
"Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is...willed into solid reality."
"Why are ships always bein' called 'she'? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" Margaret asked the table and everyone laughed, "Just another example of the men settin' the rules their way."
As the waiter arrived to take orders from the patrons, Elena lit a cigarette. Her mother stared, eyes wide.
"You know I don't like that, Elena," Isobel scolded. Elena rolled her eyes, but Klaus pulled the cigarette from her mouth and stubbed it out.
"She knows," he said, turning to the waiter, "We'll both have the lamb, rare, with a little mint sauce." Once the waiter moved on, he turned back to Elena, "You like lamb, don't you sweetie?"
"Are you gonna cut her meat for her too, Klaus?" Margaret asked him, turning to Ismay. "So who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?"
"Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury...and safety—"
"Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay," Elena said in an expressionless voice. Thomas chocked on part of his breadstick, trying to hide his laughter. Isobel was mortified and stunned. Where had her daughter learned such a thing?
"My God, Elena, what's gotten into—"
"Now, if you will excuse me," Elena said, picking up her napkin from her lap and setting it on the table, before she stalked away.
"I do apologize for her. I don't know what came over her," Isobel was able to spit out.
"She's a pistol, Klaus. You sure you can handle her?" Margaret asked delighted.
Feigning indifference and attempting to seem unbothered by the exchange, Klaus stood and replied, "I may have to start minding what she reads from now on."
"Freud?" Ismay asked confused as Klaus left, "Who is he? Is he a passenger?"
Damon sat back on the bench, soaking the bright sun into his pale features. His eyes were closed, as if asleep, but Alaric knew better. His friend, his boss, was merely listening to the world around him, absorbing the sounds and languages of the people before opening his eyes. He had a sketch book open on his lap and begun sketching the deck of the first class. It was a common theme for Damon, the whole 'outside looking in'.
The conte crayon made sure strokes, rapidly forming the deck and drawing women with large feather hats long dresses and men in their stiff suits and slicked back hair. None of the people in his drawings had a smile on their face, and though they looked like the very embodiment of luxury, they seemed unhappy and discontent. Alaric nodded appreciatively at the sketch, knowing that hours ago, one of those scowling people was him.
Now, it was not only the first class who scowl, he thought as Tyler Lockwood, a young, dark hair Brit who was marching angrily in their direction as three small dogs walked around the deck by a crew member. There was an ugly black French bulldog, a small white maltase and a toy French poodle, all neatly groomed.
"Typical," he spit out with the strong Manchester accent rolling off his words, "First class mutts come down here to do their business."
Tyler had once been first class, a member of England's own bourgeoisie, living in London with his family until they moved to Manchester where his father opened a factory. The Lockwood name was revered until his father's factory had exploded. Everything, everyone inside burned, including his father, leaving Tyler, his mother, and his siblings with mountains of debt and law suits. Tyler was coming to America to try his hand at business in order to pay off the debt and bring his family back to their class.
"They just want to let us know where we rank in the scheme of things," Damon told him, glancing up a the aft railing of B deck promenade where he was sketching out a beautiful, dark hair brunette girl with olive skin and a lace gown and long white gloves. Her eyes met his intense glaze and he felt as if they were the only two on the boat. The connection was broken when she turned away and blushed and Tyler snapped him from his trance.
"Like we can forget," the native Londoner snorted, but Alaric shook his head quickly and nodded his head towards Damon, who was enthralled by Elena's beauty. Tyler grinned and shook his head.
Elena glanced back at Damon who was still staring with such unabashed courage that now not only did her cheeks color, but she was positive the rest of her body did as well. She had never had a man look at her like that. She felt positively naughty standing there, letting the handsome third classman with blue eyes nearly burn holes through her dress and underclothes with pure desire.
Damon watched in horror as a man came up behind Elena and took her arm, but relief washed over him when she jerked her arm from the man and a hushed but heated argument occurred between the two before she stormed away.
"Forget it, boyo. It would be easier for angels to fly into you than for you to get next to the likes of her." Tyler gave Damon a said smile as he jerked from his ravine of Elena and only Elena. Alaric on the other hand, had a look on his face, one that stated that the Hessian was thinking up a plan.
"I know that look, Ric," the Count said in a quiet voice, "What are you up to?"
"Nothing that needs to worry you, Damon, nothing at all."
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P.S. Does anyone want a list of characters posted? Would that be something you guys would be interested in?