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Chapter 31: Roommates

To say that when I arrived at the boarding school I was pissed would be a great understatement. After the boy who had met me at the door showed me to my room I sat down on my bed and just stared out the window. Why was Father so cruel? Caroline had just come home and now I was stuck here in this place. Sneering, my head twisted around to stare at the bare walls. Taking in the large window that looked out onto a wide yard, nothing seemed important.

"Hey, man," a boy about my age called. Looking up at him, my gaze flicked from the dull smile on his face to the other beds.

'Wonderful,' I thought grimly. 'I'm not stuck in this hell by myself. I have to have others join me.' Rolling my eyes, I nodded in his direction.

"How do you like this place so far?" The other boy asked me conversationally. Swinging his bag on top of the bed next to mine, he waited for my answer.

"Have you ever had a nightmare in which you were sucked into a dimension where everything was so boring you wanted to jump out a window?" I inquired, trying to keep my tone light although I was frowning while staring out the window like I was not speaking theoretically.

The other boy began to laugh, "You've got that right. Oh, man, I thought I was the only one that was creped out by this place. Did you ever watch those 'Twilight Zone' shows? I swear they featured this place in one. Or maybe it was the location for an episode."

I began to chuckle in spite of my bad mood, "You're probably right."

"Where do you think they hide the bodies?" He asked me and I began to laugh aloud. "Under the library?"

"How about the church? Have you seen the place? My guide walked me past and I swear he's a zombie. I thought he was going to take a great, big bite. You have no idea how happy I was to get away from him," he continued and I laughed harder.

Then there was sardonic laughter from the other side of the door before it swung open wide. "What's so freaking funny around here?" the person called to us and I felt like I was about to fall over.

"Well, gee, you could try looking just a little bit happy to see me," Damon told me. Walking inside, he shoved the door shut with his foot and then walked over to the empty bed across from mine and threw a bag on top of it.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"What's it look like? You think that I'm visiting?" Damon snapped, shaking his head. However, the smirk on his face told me that he was not angry. "I got my dad to enroll me. Let me tell you. That was no problem for him. I think he was happy to have me out of his hair. Now, he can have his Stefan to himself and he doesn't have to look at me. And the best part is that we get to be together."

Damon turned to the other boy. "Hey, I'm Damon Salvatore," holding out his hand, he shook the other boy's.

"I'm Marcel Gerard. Great to meet you," Marcel grinned happily. "I think that we're going to have lot of fun." I felt myself grinning as well. Yes, maybe this wouldn't be so bad. "So, British, you got a name?"

"Niklaus Mikaelson," I informed him.

Marcel shook his head. "Okay. Am I really supposed to call you Niklaus?"

"We call him Nik or Klaus back home," Damon told him.

"Good. Because otherwise I would be wasting a lot of breath," Marcel informed us. "And then I wouldn't have the energy to astound you with my sense of humor."

"That's my job," Damon protested.

"Why don't you two just have a fight to the death over it? Whoever lives gets to be funny. Whoever doesn't, well, doesn't," I told them with a serious look on my face.

"See, and I thought this was going to be the worst year of my life," Marcel told us when there was a tap on the door.

"Boys, it is time for you dress and begin your classes," an older boy told us. He was standing stiffly in the door with his back impossibly straight and his eyes narrowed. Then he whirled around and disappeared into the depths of the hallway. We went to watch him be consumed by the end of the hallway which had very little light.

"Now, that is creepy," Marcel whispered.

We nodded before going back into the room to change into our outfits. Looking at the uniform, I rolled my eyes. Of course, it was a suit. Elijah would love this place. He could wear a suit every day and stand straight and be as boring as the day was long. Groaning, I pulled my clothes off and then pulled the suit on. When I turned around Marcel was struggling with his tie. "How do these things even work? I always wear a clip - on to church."

I came over and pulled the tie over his head. Knotting it for him, then loosening it so he could slip it over his head and then pull it tight. "I cannot believe that we arrived today and still have to go to classes," Damon was complaining, stuffing his shirt into his pants. He looked down at his clothes, shaking his head in disgust. The suit was too big on him. I had noticed that he was bit thin this summer.

"Dude, do you eat?" Marcel asked Damon who carried a little more weight on him than either of us.

"Apparently not enough," Damon muttered.

"Move it," a boy in the hall called to us. "Unless you want to deal with what this place considers punishments," the boy shook his head at us before heading down the hall.

"Who are you?" Damon shouted after the boy.

"Name's Galen," the boy called and then disappeared into that shadowy part of the hallway. We gulped before closing the door behind us. Walking down the hall with Damon on my right and Marcel on my left, I wondered if we would survive this place. I wanted to see my family again, except my Father. I was too angry at him right now to want to be near him. I really wanted to see Caroline.

"Shit," Marcel muttered when he tripped over a crack in the floor.

"Step on a crack…" Damon began to say when Marcel held up a hand.

"Don't, Damon, just don't," Marcel warned, shaking his head.

Damon shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I don't know what your problem is."

"Where I come from you don't mess with things like that," Marcel said seriously.

"You believe in that superstitious load of crap," Damon shook his head with a quiet laugh.

Marcel stopped in front of him. "I come from a place where we do not mess with the sprits. You get me? So, let's try to be a little more careful." Walking ahead of us, Marcel seemed to be upset.

Walking faster, I placed an arm around Marcel's shoulders. "Marcel, Damon doesn't mean to be like that. It's just the way he was born to be."

"An ass," Damon said gleefully, coming to walk beside us with a wide grin. "You'll come to love me."

"This place is creepy. So, I just don't want to wake up with some pissed off sprit in my face," Marcel was saying.

"BOO," another boy shouted from behind us, making all three of us jump. "I love newbies. Too easy," the boy said before hurrying off.

"Good job, Brady," one of the boy's friends told him, clapping him on the back.

I was beginning to hate this place more and more by the minute. When we stepped into the classroom, I was sure I had done something wrong and that I deserved to be in this place for punishment. There was not a single thing on the walls that said that we were still kids. It was just bare walls and bare desks.

Sitting down at an empty desk, I was relieved that there was an empty desk on either side of me to be able to sit at without being surrounded by strangers. I was not happy for long when something came slithering out of Marcel's desk and he jumped out of his chair, toppling it to the floor. "What's wrong? Never seen a snake before?" Galen asked as the teacher came in and stared at Marcel.

"Sit down," the teacher ordered Marcel who was staring at the snake on top of the desk. The teacher just stood there, "Are you hard of hearing? I said sit down." The teacher came to stand in front of Marcel and then looked down when the snake hissed. "What are you doing with that?" he demanded. "Take it outside. Right now. First day here and you're already disrupting the class."

Marcel could only stare at the snake in horror. Damon got up and grabbed the thing by the neck and jerked it off the desk. While the teacher had his back turned, Damon walked around Galen's desk and slapped him in the back of the head as he departed.

I saw Galen start to get up and follow Damon when the teacher turned back around and stared at Marcel. "Excuse me, what is your name?"

"Marcel Gerard, sir," Marcel said quietly. The teacher began to flip through his book.

"Yes, Marcellus Gerard, try to not bring any more snakes into my classroom. I do not take kindly to that kind of behavior and the other boys know that. Now, who was the boy who took that reptile out for you?" our teacher asked.

"Damon Salvatore," I informed him, sitting back in my seat. I could tell already that we would not be getting on well.

"Well, Mr?" The man stared at me with one of those condescending adult smiles.

"Klaus Mikaelson," I replied curtly as I folded my arms over my chest.

He peered into his book again. "Niklaus, interesting name," he murmured. Turning to the board, he began to write. "My name is Mr. Tanner and I will be teaching you history for the year." He stopped when Damon came back into the room. "Mr. Salvatore, welcome back. I would like you to know that you will be cleaning all the chalkboards this afternoon during lunch. When I say I want a certain student to do something I mean what I say."

Damon just stood in the doorway, his jaw hanging open. He came back and sat down at his seat. "You're going to wish you hadn't messed with Galen," a boy next to Damon whispered before sitting back in his seat. The boy smirked when I looked over at him.

Lunch came quickly enough and one of the many boys that seemed to pop out of the floorboards of the school came to collect Damon to clean the chalkboards. Damon was joking about not passing Go and collecting two hundred dollars as he headed off to perform his punishment. The other boy did not laugh. I began to think about Marcel's comment about zombies.

When lunch was over, we reconvened for the next class. I found myself looking around for Damon. He was nowhere in sight. "Marcel, have you seen Damon?" I asked as I continued to look around the classroom. When he did not appear, I walked to the front of the classroom and started to leave when someone blocked me in.

"Hello," the man who I assumed was our teacher greeted me before closing the door.

"I need to look for my friend, Damon," I told the man.

He frowned. "Oh, yes, sorry. He's in the infirmary," he walked over to the desk and then turned to the chalkboard.

"What?" I called from the door.

"Your friend. He's in the infirmary. He fell down the stairs during lunch," the teacher told me. I turned to stare at Galen who was sitting in his seat like he found this scene entertaining.

I forced myself to take a seat but on the inside I was fuming. I was going to make that boy pay for hurting my friend. "What happened?" Marcel whispered to me.

"Damon fell down the stairs," I whispered back and then sat back in my chair. That was a lie. Damon was not clumsy. When the class was over Marcel and I walked back to our room. The minute one of the older boys went walking by our room, I grabbed him by the sleeve. "My friend was hurt today. He's in the infirmary. I'm new here and I need to see him."

The boy looked around and then waved for us to leave the room. "You have to be careful around here," the boy told us as we walked. "There are some boys who know how to get away with almost anything. You don't want to get on the wrong side of them."

"Thank you," I replied as we stopped in front of what he told us was the infirmary. Marcel and I walked inside, looking around to make sure that we would not be caught. When we were sure the coast was clear we walked through the row of beds to Damon's. His head was wrapped in gauze and his left eyelid was swollen shut. His arm was in a sling. I could tell that these injuries were the result of a beating, not of simply falling down the stairs. "Hey," Damon whispered to me, opening an eyelid.

"Hey, who did this to you?" I asked, sitting down on the bed beside him.

Damon shrugged and then groaned, "Doesn't matter, Nik. I guess I need to learn my place or something like that."

"You shouldn't have followed me here," I told him.

"Then who would protect the two of you?" Damon asked me with a grin.

"Don't be a jerk, Damon," I snapped. "Now, tell me who did this to you?"

Marcel shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying to keep an eye out for trouble. "You need to get out of here," he murmured.

"We all need to get out of here," I replied, staring at my broken friend.

"I'm tired, Nik. I'm going to go to sleep now," Damon told me.

"I will find out who did this," I warned him.

"Not from me," Damon retorted as he rolled onto his good side.

We walked back to our room and I laid in bed most of the night plotting my revenge. Maybe Damon was okay with just letting what Galen and his friends had done to him go but I was not. No one hurt my friends. "We're going to make them pay, Marcel," I whispered into the dark to the sound of Marcel's responding snore. Staring at the ceiling, I wondered how long we would be stuck in this prison like place. Staring at the window, I fell asleep to the thoughts of Caroline.

ferrylis: Josh and Diego will be appearing somewhere in the next ten pages.

elijahlover: Something tells me that Klaus will be reunited sooner than later thanks to visits from home. Look forward to the next chapter.

Serenity 31: Thank you very much.

: I've never seen The Wild Thornberries. I'll have to put it on my summer "to watch list."

CB4389: You're welcome. As you probably noticed Marcel has already made an appearance (because I love his character and try to find ways to sneak him in) and Enzo is not far behind. Galen Vaughn, Conner Jordan and Alexander (Rebekah's hunter ex) are the villians for this part of the story. Thiery and Diego will be making appearances. As for anybody else I will have to see what else is going on in the story; otherwise my brain might explode from character overload.

Redbudrose: Okay, there are reasons for the cruelty. I've always been a huge fan of coming of age stories and this is my first attempt at writing one. So, to make it at least somewhat realistic I had to show that life sucks sometimes and that we do not always get what we want. But don't worry, Klaus will see Caroline very, very soon. As for not liking Hayley, you know how you find her more tolerable in ACBD, just keep in mind that she is little more than a kid in this story and that I'm playing with her character.

Fjolla: Thank you for the support.

Guest: Wow there, reader. Slow down. No, no, no. We are not jumping ahead in time. As you can see if you read this chapter Klaus is not a teenager and won't be for sometime. Think of it like a Harry Potter book or something where the kids age slowly not in one huge leap. So, if you're still out there I hope you see that.

klaroline-lovergames: Mikael is being an over-protective father right now. That will not necessarily work out in his favor.

Guest: Marcel and Josh for sure since this is an all boy's school. At some point in one of the stories I will try to get Davina into the story because I love her character.

Thanks for reading, faving, following and reviewing: Guest and Heidiionaanita.

Peace,

LL