Stop Drinking

"You live here?" Tyler asked as Marcel led him in through a set of heavy metal doors and into a wide open space littered with dark red sofas and chairs, low-sitting coffee tables and chairs. There was a spiraling metal staircase that led to the upper level where golden lights were wrapped around steel railings and criss-crossed the ceiling.

"Yep," Marcel said. "Most of the family does, too. All the rooms are upstairs. Down here is where the fun happens."

Marcel had practically dragged Tyler out of the house this morning, shoving him into his dark blue car (which interestingly enough, Marcel was the one driving). He said it was for a field trip, just getting Tyler out of the house. When he pointed out what Marcel said about Tyler not getting too far from the house, Marcel waved it off. "You'll be fine," he'd said. "You're with me, and we're just going to my place."

Marcel's place was in the middle of the French Quarter, an old historical building with a long balcony overhead. From the outside it didn't look like much, but the inside made up for it.

"Want a drink?" Marcel asked, rounding the bar. Behind it was a wall of curiously colored bottles of alcohol.

Tyler nodded. "I don't think I'm gonna be able to help you with Bonnie," he said as Marcel pushed a glass of something alcoholic toward him. "It didn't go so well last night."

Marcel shrugged. "Have some patience," he said. "Rome wasn't built in a day, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Tyler said dully, "but I still don't think..." He sighed and downed his drink. "I can't help you. We weren't that close back home, and now I don't know her at all. You probably know her better than I do at this point."

"No doubt about that," Marcel agreed, pouring himself a drink and drinking it all in one gulp. He poured another.

Tyler raised an eyebrow. "What do you know about Bonnie?"

"She's a Bennett witch, and that means she's powerful," Marcel said. " She died, was resurrected and came here with Klaus because he was willing to pay her way. I know that even if she doesn't agree with Klaus, she's loyal to Klaus. To an extent. She came here looking for security, and she got it. The only thing that matters to her now is her life and keeping it. Can't put a price on that. It's gonna take a lot longer than one night to get her on our side. Keep trying."

"I still can't believe she's working for Klaus," Tyler said, extending his glass to Marcel for a refill.

"Believe it."

"What does she do for him?"

"Whatever he needs her to do," Marcel said. "And she's good at it. Did a bit of work for him last night actually after the party."

"What?"

"I'll tell you once I know more," Marcel assured him. "Anyway, maybe you can answer a question for me. Was Bonnie a cheerleader?"

That was an odd change of subject, but Tyler still said, "Varsity. Why?"

Marcel drummed his fingers on the bar in a fast tempo, a delighted percussion. "I knew it. She's very...bendy."

Tyler cocked his head to the side, unsure of what he just heard. Because it couldn't have been what he thought he heard. "She's very what?"

"Bendy."

Bendy. This was going in a direction Tyler didn't want it to go. He looked down at his glass. "Maybe we should change the subject."

"Talking about sex makes you uncomfortable?" Marcel said, resting his elbows on the bar and leaning forward.

"No," Tyler said. "I just...You didn't have sex with Bonnie."

He didn't even know if Bonnie had ever had sex before. She'd been with Jeremy for awhile, but Tyler had never really asked about their sexual habits, and Bonnie hadn't had many boyfriends. The only one Tyler remembered pre-Jeremy was Andy Witwer who ended up moving to Maryland right before their sophomore year. Even if Bonnie was secretly a nymphomaniac who'd had sex every single night since they'd started high school, she wouldn't have slept with Marcel. She didn't even seem to like him, and Bonnie had always been selective about who she spent her time with.

"How do you know?" Marcel asked, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. "Were you there?"

"She wouldn't go near you," Tyler said, matching Marcel's grin with his own and waiting for Marcel to tell him he was just kidding. But the "just kidding" never came.

Andy Witwer and Jeremy Gilbert weren't going to be winning any Nobel Peace Prizes anytime soon, but they were decent. Marcel was the vampire king of New Orleans who kept witches and their magic under his thumb and had probably killed hundreds if not thousands of people in his lifetime (no killing rule be damned, Marcel's hands were definitely not blood free).

Marcel threw back his head and laughed. "Tyler," he said, once his laughter subsided. "She definitely came near me. If you catch my drift."

Tyler felt his mouth drop open and hurried to close it, laughing uncomfortably. "I catch it, but now I'd like to drop it."

Of all the things they could talk about (the weather, interior design choices, the movies in theaters right now) they had to talk about the sex Marcel definitely didn't have with Bonnie.

"Fine," Marcel said. "We can talk about your sex life. I mean, do you have one? Have you had sex since you left your podunk little town and your pageant queen girlfriend?"

Tyler sat up a little straighter on his stool, smile fading instantly. All the air seemed to have left the room as Marcel poured them both another drink, his own grin still in place. "What do you know about my girlfriend?"

He'd been very careful hadn't he? He hadn't said a word about Caroline, not even when Marcel asked about what happened with Klaus. He only checked his messages when Marcel wasn't in the house. Caroline was a secret, for her own sake.

"The basics," Marcel said, unconcerned with Tyler's clenched, trembling fists. "Sweet Caroline. Teenage love affair, vampire and werewolf, later hybrid. Deeply in love, now very far apart."

"Don't hurt her," Tyler said. "I'll do whatever you need me to do, but-"

Marcel held up a hand. "Would you calm down? I'm not threatening you, I'm making conversation. You always this paranoid?"

"Excuse me for not exactly trusting the guy who threatened to kill me unless I agreed to help him," Tyler said. He loosened his hand, letting the sting and the indentations where he'd pressed his nails in fade.

Marcel let out a heavy sigh and leaned forward again, looking Tyler straight in the eye. "Let me tell you something: I've threatened to kill a lot of people to get what I want, and most of them are still alive. You want to know why they're alive? Because they delivered. I keep my word, Tyler. You give me what I want, I give you what you want. I gave you more than my promise not to kill you, I gave you a promise not to let anyone else hurt you either.

"Believe it or not," he went on, "I'm looking out for you. Your best interests are my best interests and vice versa. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you as long as you trust me, and trust that I'm here keeping you safe, even if it doesn't feel that way all the time. I'm not gonna hurt you, I'm not gonna hurt your high school sweetheart either. We're on the same side. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay," Marcel said. "Now, you have to drink this because you insulted not only my ability to seduce a woman but my trustworthiness, and I'm deeply offended."

He passed Tyler another drink.

Three Months Ago

It was probably inevitable. It didn't make it any less unexpected, any less surprising, but it was probably inevitable. If Tyler asked a stranger on the street, they'd tell him it was bound to happen because that was what always happened. Turn on any movie, and this was what happened.

One minute he and Lydia are just doing their thing. He followed her around while she shopped, while she tried to point out to him all the cool places to go, told him all the cool things to do. He never really listened and by the time they went their separate ways, he'd forgotten everything she'd told him. Some things stuck with him like the little shop on the corner where they had to ring a buzzer to be let in, where they were minimal racks of clothing and sour faced sales associates watching him and Lydia walk around their store. Caroline would have loved it, the too exclusive glamour of it. Those were the only things he recalled later, the things Caroline would have liked, the things he'd like to show her if he ever got the chance, if he was ever able to see her again and bring her here.

When one of the sales associates, one with the wispy strands of blond hair hanging around her face and wearing a black and white sundress and smelling strongly of designer perfume, copped an attitude with a browsing Lydia she was instantly compelled into bagging up four costly dresses for Lydia to leave with. They left her with her dazed and compliant look, Lydia laughing the whole way as they walked before she paid full price for an overpriced pair of sunglasses because the girl selling them was really sweet and even bought a pair for Tyler.

And that's when it started. The touching. Lydia placed the sunglasses delicately on his face. One pair that she hated immediately and replaced with a second. She didn't like those either so she went on and on until she found a pair she liked on him. Her fingertips brushed across his ears, his cheeks, moved to his shoulders when she turned him toward a mirror.

Then she insisted on finding him a decent shirt. "I'm sick of your two preferred t-shirts," she said as she pulled him into another store.

He was in the dressing room, door open while Lydia tossed ties in his direction. "You need something that gets put on a hanger, something that needs to be ironed once in awhile."

"Why?" Tyler asked. "I don't go anywhere." He didn't even have an iron.

"If you went somewhere this wouldn't be a problem," Lydia said returning with another button down and another tie, red and black respectively. "Take it off."

Tyler obliged, shrugging off the other one and throwing it onto the chair in the corner. He put on the other one, and Lydia stepped forward to tie his tie for him. Tyler had never been spectacular with tying his own, but he definitely knew how to do it, and Lydia knew he knew how to do it because he'd tied the last two ties that had been shoved at him. She had fast fingers and got it done, pushing the knot up. It was perfect, and it reminded him of the flawless knots his dad had done.

"Try this one," Lydia said, grabbing a different tie and undoing the one Tyler was wearing. She did this one just as fast. "This is the one," she said certainly, smoothing it down with the palm of her hand. "Perfect."

It was about to be one of those things, the moment in the movie where the two leads look at each other with new eyes and lean in for the kiss.

Not in this movie.

"I'm kind of...I have a girlfriend," Tyler said quickly. "Her name's Caroline, and she's great. And she's at home. We're not officially together because I'm here obviously, but we're still together. I still want to be with her so this-" he gestured between them "-can't happen."

Lydia blinked at him, amused. He thought she might actually laugh, but she didn't.

Tyler did like her. Lydia was the closest thing he'd had to a friend since he'd gotten here, and even though he rebuffed her attempts to turn him into someone sociable and fun, someone closer to who he used to be, she liked him, too. They were friends.

"Okay," she said, dropping her arms back to her sides. "Still want to get lunch?"

Present Day

Tyler stayed at the bar, bobbing his head along to music that blared from a stereo across the room. He didn't even care that it was barely past noon, and he was pretty much drunk. Not sliding-off-his-barstool drunk but drunk enough to know that he was drunk. Marcel had laughed at him then gone off to handle business. Tyler heard the doors open with a prolonged rattle then slam closed again. Heels on the floor made him turn his head, and it was Bonnie, backlit by the sunlight spilling through the windows, glowing like a lit candle.

He was so drunk.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, swiveling around on his barstool. He didn't slur his words, but he knew Bonnie could tell he wasn't sober by the curious quirk of her eyebrows.

"What are you doing here?" she countered. Today she was fresh-faced and simple looking, in a long skirt and a midriff baring tank top. Around her neck hung a necklace that she definitely hadn't been wearing last night with a red ruby and glittering diamonds. "Thought you couldn't leave the house."

"Special occasion," Tyler said. "You didn't answer me."

"I wasn't going to," she said, leaning against the bar. Her gaze flitted over him, from head-to-toe then she smirked. "Having a good morning?"

"Didn't have a very great night," he said. "So I'm making up for it. How was your night?" She had to go to work last night. Tyler doubted she'd tell him about whatever it was she'd had to do for Klaus last night.

And he was right.

"Boring."

"You're lying."

Bonnie shrugged. "So?"

"Why don't you tell the truth?"

"Why should I?"

"I don't know," Tyler sighed. "Because I haven't lied to you."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Really? Well, you weren't exactly forthcoming about Marcel telling you to be all buddy-buddy with me. I'm not stupid, Tyler. Marcel wants me on his team, and he thinks you'll be able to make that happen."

Tyler almost laughed. "Can you stop biting my head off? I'm just trying to make conversation. I mean, yeah, Marcel wanted me to get you on his side, but that's not why I'm trying to make conversation. I just wanna talk to you."

Bonnie narrowed her eyes at him skeptically, leaning forward a little bit more to peer closer at his face. Then she smiled, leaning back. He wanted to ask her what was so funny. "Make conversation about something else."

The whole bendy thing probably fell under the category of things Bonnie didn't want to talk about, and Tyler wasn't drunk enough to test that theory.

Bendy.

Unbelievable.

"Okay," Tyler said, shoving those thoughts to the back of his mind. "I will. I won't ask you anymore questions about what happened or why you're here or anything else. Nothing about Caroline or anyone. Not even Klaus. Okay?"

"Okay," Bonnie said.

They both turned around as Marcel, framed in the doorway of a corner room, called. "Bonnie," he said, "step into my office."

Bonnie didn't look back at Tyler before she went inside. She wasn't in there very long, a little more than ten minutes which seemed to go past at the blink of an eye. Tyler hadn't moved from his spot.

"Bye," he said as she walked past him.

Bonnie stopped for a moment, like she was considering saying anything back to him. Then she turned and came to stand at his side again, very close to him. She reached to move his glass, pushing it down the bar where it sat several feet away from him, too many feet for Tyler to consider reaching for it. Then he would fall off his bar stool.

"Stop drinking," Bonnie said. She was whispering, but Tyler didn't know why.

"You're one to talk Miss Hungover Until Thanksgiving."

"Tyler," she said sternly, clapping a hand over his. "Stop drinking. Trust me."

Tyler looked down at her hand on his, watched as their hands began to revolve on top of the table. He closed his eyes and opened them again. Their hands were still. "Okay," he said. "I'm done."

Bonnie withdrew her hand, satisfied. "Bye." He watched her go, disappearing out the door.

Marcel came out soon after and sat on the stool next to Tyler. "Ready to leave?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Want another drink?"

"No," Tyler said, still staring at the door where Bonnie left. There was a pit forming in his stomach, wide and gaping. They'd barely talked at all, and now she was gone. Who knew when he'd see her again.

"One more," Marcel said, reaching over the bar to find another glass. He poured Tyler another one and held it out to him.

Trust me.

"No, I'm okay," Tyler said. "I think I've had enough." He slid off his barstool onto wobbly legs, reaching out to steady himself on the bar. An amused look on his face, Marcel stood as well.

"Let's get you back," Marcel said, slinging an arm around Tyler's shoulder. "I hope you had fun. You're too young and too immortal for all the brooding."

Maybe Tyler was drunker than he thought. He sprawled on his bed, twisted in the covers and staring up at the ceiling. Through the window came yellow light, looking yellower than it ever had before. The color seemed to pulse and contort the longer he stared at it, transforming before his eyes. He thought of Bonnie and the illumination that had clung to her as she'd walked.

Stop drinking.

"Go sleep it off, kid," Marcel had said, when he'd given Tyler's shoulder a brotherly pat and sent him up the stairs.

But Tyler wasn't sleeping. He was just moving in and out of a haze, feeling warm and sloppy. He'd been drunk before, lots of times. This wasn't the feeling he had when he was drunk. He didn't want to move, had no motivation to do so. Even when he heard the footsteps, at least four sets, outside the door, he didn't move.

Moving meant moving, and Tyler wasn't game for that.

He heard a door opening. It didn't sound like any of the other doors in the house, sounds which had become familiar to him. This one was new.

And there was only one door Tyler had never opened, not for lack of trying.

He moved.

The room spun slightly as he got off his bed, stepping toward the door. A hand on the side of the door to steady himself, he pulled it open. The hallway seemed like one he'd see in a funhouse, comically narrow and seeming to get longer and longer with every blink of his eyes.

He walked.

Slowly and cautiously but still walking. He passed the stairs, looking distorted and watery. His gaze lingered on them, looking at the dripping wood and the waves created by the rolling carpet.

"Tyler."

It was the first time he'd ever heard Ronan say his name, and Tyler turned around so quickly he almost lost his balance, to be steadied by Ronan's hand. "Come on," Ronan said, putting an arm around Tyler's shoulders to turn him back the way he came, away from the opened attic door and the footsteps.

"Ronan!"

Marcel.

Ronan turned Tyler back around to see him approaching, only a small smile teasing at his lips.

"You drugged me," Tyler realized.

Marcel let out a breath. "Yeah. Had to, kid. I'll take it from here, Ronan." He took Ronan's place at Tyler's side, guiding him back to his bedroom, and Tyler didn't see where Ronan went. He disappeared so fast.

Back in his room, Tyler sat at the edge of his bed, leaning against one of the posts. "Fuck you," he murmured.

"Yeah, yeah," Marcel said, standing at the door. "You're mad, but you'll get over it."

Stop drinking.

"You drugged me."

"Probably should have given you more," he said. "Then you wouldn't be wandering. You'll be fine in an hour or two, after you've got some blood in your system."

"I don't want anything from you."

Marcel rolled his eyes, and it seemed to last forever. "Relax. Remember our conversation earlier. I'm protecting you, even if it doesn't seem like it. There are some things you can't know. Not yet."

"What's in the attic?" Tyler asked groggily.

Marcel smiled at the question. "That's one of those things you can't know yet."

Marcel said he'd feel better in an hour or two. It felt like twelve hours had passed, and Tyler was still in bed, unmoving and foggy headed. If he couldn't move he needed to hear. He heard footsteps up in the attic and more movement than there had ever been before. And he thought he heard crying and muffled screaming, voices all speaking at once, some he didn't recognize.

The sounds stopped.

When Marcel came in, a bag of blood in hand, he passed it to Tyler. "Drink."

"I don't think I want to drink anything you give me," Tyler said.

Marcel rolled his eyes. "Drink. I have something to tell you."

Tyler sat up with great difficulty and snatched the blood from Marcel's hand. He drank it down and could feel his mind clearing instantly. Marcel waited until he drank down the whole bag before speaking.

"A ward was broken last night," he said. "Do you know what that is?"

"No."

"Witches create them for protection, security," he explained. "If they're broken they make a sound. A metaphorical sound."

"Oh, a metaphorical sound," Tyler said dully.

"Metaphorical and magical," Marcel said. "Which is how I know about the ward breaking."

"How was there a ward if you don't let witches practice?" Tyler asked, bitter at his own participation in this conversation after Marcel drugged him.

"Another witch made that ward," Marcel explained. "That was months ago. I killed her for it. She made a few apparently, all of which were broken, except for that one which I...missed. I'm sure that was her intention." He gritted his teeth in frustration but seemed to shrug it off.

"So who broke it?" Tyler said.

"Bonnie, but that's not important," Marcel answered. "What's important is what the ward was protecting. Klaus sent her there to get something."

"Did she get it?"

"Bonnie's a good soldier," Marcel said. "She got it. That's why I'm talking to you now. What the ward was protecting wasn't an it but a who. A werewolf named Hayley. You know her, right?"

White hot heat crackled in his fingertips, shooting up his arms. He felt it his skin and in his bones, coursing through his blood. Faces flashed before his eyes, the twelve faces of his hybrid pack and then his mom, her powdered, dead face and the navy blue dress she'd been buried in, the smiling picture he'd chosen for the obituary and the memorial service and the funeral program.

"Yeah," he said. "I know her."